Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 4 Productions of flax
and hemp fibres in top EU
countries in 2005/2006
Flax(tons)
Hemp(tons)
France(178 500)
France(18 000)
Belgium(26 547)
Germany(3 768)
The Netherlands(8412)
Spain(2 047)
Czech Rep.(4700)
UK(1062)
Lithuania(4337)
-
In summary, studies show that vegetable fibres as raw materials of building
insulation materials are increasingly being used to substitute for conventional
materials. Today, the annual distribution of production of vegetable fibrous raw
materials is about 4 billion tons, of which roughly 60 % comes from agricultural
crops and 40 % from forests (Olesen and Plackett). As an illustration, Table
4
shows
top EU countries and annual productions of flax and hemp. For vegetable fibre
composites, approximately 2 9 10
11
tons of lignocellulosics are produced annually
in contrast to 1.5 9 10
8
tons of synthetic polymers (Reddy and Yang
2005
).
This growing trend has been well described in the literature, for example
(Satyanarayana et al.
2009a
), demonstrating particularly strong interest in vege-
table fibre-based composites in building markets since natural fibres have the
additional advantage of being composted or recycled with calorific value recov-
ered at the end of their life cycle, which is not possible with glass fibres (Hill et al.
1998
). Furthermore, they have significantly less energy and cost for manufacturing
and do not affect the manufacturing tools. A short review briefly illustrating their
manufacturing process and the main results in composite construction will be
provided in the following subsections.
3.4 Manufacturing Process
Manufacturing involves processing vegetable fibres into the products to satisfy
needs of insulation products. Manufacturing enterprises use various raw machines
and in operations organized according to the well-prepared plan or schedule.
Today, manufacturing strategies generally integrate environmental sustainability
so that the entire manufacturing process, beginning with the basic raw materials
and ending with the products, requires ecological. All the raw materials used in the
manufacture of the insulation can be recycled in the process. At the end of life
cycle of building, vegetable fibrous materials can be recycled back to the insu-
lation material. The whole manufacturing process can be very complex and
affected by many factors. Depending on the unique application and requirement,
manufacturing processes can vary and big differences of qualities can be obtained
at the end of the process even if for the same type of insulation product. Addi-
tionally, manufacturers may have confidential information about the processes.
Nevertheless, the aim of any manufacturing is to provide customer satisfaction for
the industry.
