From environmental nuisance to secondary raw material: coastal vegetal waste in composites industry

Seamatter
Type of organisation or company
Country
Spain
City
Valencia
Language for original content
Project elaborated in partnership
Yes
Submitted by
Asociación de Empresarios Textiles de la comunidad Valenciana - ATEVAL
Start/End date
to
Ongoing
No
Type of funding
Seamatter
Description

Algae and seaweed accumulations on beaches and along our coasts are an environmental nuisance. This biomass emits unpleasant odors, promotes mosquitos and its rotting contributes to the high mortality in shellfish beds as they turn into rubbish.

SEA-MATTER demonstrates that non-woven textile structures made from coastal vegetal waste can be used as composite reinforcement in noise isolation acoustic panels.

Wet-laid technology has been selected as the most optimum technology to transform the algae waste in non-wovens to be used as reinforced structure. Fibrous and particulate materials can be easily applied in wet-laid process to develop non-woven structures. This waste has to meet some technical requirements (length, size, density, etc.) that have already been successfully studied.

In addition, the possibility of using these algae and seaweed residues in non-woven textile industry with applications in building noise isolation opens a new and attractive environmental option to design new green composites as an alternative to the conventional synthetic ones.

 

Identified challenge (s)
Main results

Through the correct execution of the LIFE SEA-MATTER project there is the possibility of giving value to the Posidonia Oceanica waste obtaining technique acoustic isolation panels to be applied in the building sector.

Accumulated algae waste will not have to be disposed of but it is being reused which provides environmental benefit.

The non-wovens developed through the wet-laid technology from coastal vegetal wastes are easily applicable as reinforcement for obtaining of composites through different technologies, offering good properties of acoustic isolation. Furthermore, when a good fire behavior is needed, it is possible to incorporate technical fibres with high thermal properties in the textile reinforcement process using wet-laid technology.