Innovative façade panels based on waste mineral wool applied as secondary material environmental assessment

Authors
Malovrh Rebec, Katja; Lešek, Anja; Knez, Friderik; Pavlin, Majda; Ducman, Vilma; Kaiser, Anne; Pavlin, Alenka

Abstract
Mineral wool is vastly used as insulation material in building applications and is therefore an important part of CDW resulting from demolition that ends up in landfills. H2020 Wool2Loop project focuses on closing material loops by transforming waste into secondary material. One of such product is novel façade panel inspired by geopolymer approach, where pretreated mineral wool is used as precursor. To environmentally evaluate this idea, the Life Cycle Assessment has been calculated. In this study, firstly, the environmental burdens of avoided landfilling because of waste mineral wool use in the panels have been assessed. Secondly, in addition to avoiding landfilling mineral wool waste, by reusing it as a secondary input material at the same time reduces the depletion of virgin materials since it replaces material originally intended for use in a conventional variant of the product. The case study presented in this report is a precast panel intended to be used for façades with a share of milled and sieved waste mineral wool. Life cycle assessment of panels production has been calculated and compared to another solution for such application already available on the market. Four different life cycle assessment methodologies were applied to mineral wool waste as secondary material, enabling us to see at environmental burdens from different perspectives. Since this research is part of a bigger project, where mineral wool powder is used also for other applications such as a 3D printing paste, the result of this environmental impact study can be used in future research work as a benchmark for 1t of recycled mineral wool powder.