Collaborative ISOBIO project closes successfully

The TWI-coordinated ISOBIO project has successfully completed with a final meeting in Brussels and a workshop attended by around 70 people. The project was highly complimented by the European Commission, having begun in February 2015 and including input from 11 partners across 6 different European countries.

The project sought an innovative strategy to bring bio-based construction materials into the mainstream at scale, with a key innovation being the use of pre-treated bio-based aggregates for construction. These materials, which are typically the result of combining organic and inorganic materials, include insulation materials, hygrothermal and moisture buffering materials, binders, sol-gel and resins.

Technologically, the project focussed on developing new sustainable cost-effective construction materials that can show social and environmental benefits in order to optimise the construction process and create more energy-efficient buildings. This, in turn, will lead to strengthened competitiveness across the European construction sector in the field of ‘green’ construction technologies.

Not only do the new carbon negative materials provide environmental benefits, but they should also see a reduction in construction costs by 15% as they provide a 20% improvement to insulation and consume 50% less embodied energy than conventional materials. These improvements should also provide a 5% reduction in the total energy spent over the lifetime of a building.

TWI assisted with the overall project management as well as with the selection of surface treatments and resin binders and the assessment of barrier properties for the product forms.

With an accompanying dissemination plan, it is hoped that the work of the ISOBIO project will see a speedy market uptake across Europe and further afield.

Supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program under the umbrella of the ‘Materials for Building Envelopes’ call for Energy Efficient Buildings, the project involved Acciona Infraestructuras, Cavac Biomatériaux, Claytec, Greenovate! Europe, BCB Lhoist Group, the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Progetic, Stramit International (Strawboard) Ltd, University of Bath and Université de Rennes alongside TWI.

You can find out more about the ISOBIO project at the dedicated website.