Thermal Insulation by Typha plants - Development of production process

Wood is used for heating since a very long time. Nowadays, the oil price is rising. This fact leads to the situation, that the wood is even more used for power production and also for fuel production. As well as other raw materials, only a restricted supply of the natural raw material wood is possible. The-refore it is more and more difficult to supply the material needs and also the wood price is rising. A Upper-Austrian start up company uses cattail (lat. Typha) as an alternative raw material. The plant consits to approx. 85 Vol % of a light sponge material. By this “natural insulation sponge“ the material is very light and contains very much air. Therefore it is suited very well as a raw material for insulating materials. Also cattail grows in the water. As a marsh plant it can handle with humidity. The-se are important properties which are preserved in the insulation product. Cattail grows in big natural areas in East Europe, especially in Hungary and Romania. Up to now the material is not used. Ho-wever, Typha can also be cultivated in Central Europe. The new insulating materials based on typha can be used as wall insulation (WDVS) and rooftop insulation. The insulating material can be produced without any adhesive. In addition, 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 breathable, so that the water damp can diffuse from the room through the wall to the outside. Prototypes of the isulation material were built in the laboratory. In this project, the large-scale technical production procedure should be studied. With lab tests and experiments on a technical center, exist-ing procedures should be tested for the new raw material. Also new technologies should be developed for the typha. The development is the basis for a scaling up of the production process. In parallel with the procedure development, a demonstration house should be isolated with the new material. The experiences from the practical application should give conclusions on the scaling up of the production procedure. The central project-team consists of the Typha expert, a research-partner and a engineering of-fice for process design.