Insulation material made of cattail

Status

completed

Summary

Initial situation / motivation

Naporo Klima Dämmstoff GmbH is a Start-Up from upper Austria operating in the fields of clean-tech and renewable raw materials. The company is focused on the cattail-plant (Typha sp.) utilising it for the production of ecological climate active insulation materials.

The new insulating materials based on typhus can be used as wall insulation (WDVS) as well as for rooftop insulation. The use of the material offers room-climatic advantages. Attics do not heat up in summer by the high mass of the insulating material. Also the sound absorption of the walls and roofs can be considerably improved. Last but not least, the material is open porous. Consequently water damp is able to diffuse from the room throughout the wall towards the outside. The techniques of defibration, and blending, additives and technical procedures create products for multiple applications.

Issues and Goals

The first step of this project was the examination of alterations of the raw material in large scale production plants. These findings should be used for the optimization of panel properties and the production process. Different defibration methods as well as several gluing types and application methods were examined. One goal was to optimize the panels for large scale processing lines such as in the particleboard industry. Another goal was to describe the specifications for a typha board specific production line.

Methods

Existing technologies were examined based upon laboratory and pilot plant experiments. Specific proceedings for this new raw material were developed. First appropriate operations and raw material compositions have been identified in laboratory scale. Different parameters such as origin of raw material, grinding technology and degree, adhesive type and amount, density, and humidity have been varied. Several experiments werde performed demonstrating the impact of such parameter on the product properties and the production process. The physical properties of the produced lab probes have been tested and compared subsequently. Intermediate results were finally verified in a pilot plant scale test series.

Results

The production of compression proof typha based insulation boards in large scale production lines is successfully demonstrated.

An important result was the development of a completely new spray-gluing technique for typha.

However, necessary adoptions to the new raw material were more difficult than assumed in the beginning.

Especially the range of panel processing methods was reduced throughout the project. Omitting glue was not possible, and urea-formaldehyde resins turned out to be the best choice.

Project management

DI Robert Schwemmer
NAPORO Klima Dämmstoff GmbH

Project collaborator

• Univ.-Prof. DI Dr. Alfred Teischinger, Univ. Ass. DI Dr. Johannes Konnerth, Bakk. techn. Christoph Tipplreither, Ing. Robert Stingl, Bakk. techn. Sebastian Hochsteiner
• Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (BOKU), Institut für Holzforschung, Department für Materialwissenschaften und Prozesstechnik
• Im Auftrag der BOKU
  Priv. Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Ulrich Müller, DI Martin Weil, Christoph Schwarz
  Kompetenzzentrum Holz GmbH, Standort BOKU
• DI Wolfgang Jutz
  Avento Consulting KEG

Dipl. Ing. Robert Schwemmer
NAPORO natürlicher Dämmstoff i.G.
Linzer Str. 24, 4950 Altheim
Tel.: +43 (7723) 465 697
Fax: +43 (7723) 465 690
E-Mail: office@naporo.com
Web: www.naporo.com