Thermal Performance Evaluation of Textile Waste as an Alternative Solution for Heat Transfer Reduction in Buildings

Abstract

The potential applicability of a developed recycled textile material, based on acrylic spinning waste, as thermal insulation is conducted. The prepared acrylic spinning waste (AS) is thermo-physically characterized in terms of density, air permeability, and thermal conductivity. The results show that the density and air permeability are 10.583 kg/m3 and 1100 L/m2/s, respectively. In addition, the thermal conductivity is found to be 38.27 mW/(m K). The developed thermal insulator is then tested in a thermally controlled reduced scale cavity. Two walls of the cavity are outfitted with AS at two different locations and compared to the walls without AS. The comparison is made based on the wall surface temperature and heat flux. A reduction in surface temperature is observed in the walls outfitted with AS, compared to wall without AS. Indeed, compared to a control wall, the peak heat fluxes are reduced by 27.23% and 18.67%, respectively, related to the walls with AS at location 1 and location 2. The obtained results show that the AS is a competitive thermal insulation material and can increase the thermal performance of the building walls.