Innovative Materials and Technologies for a New Envelope System in the Sustainable Refurbishment of Existing Building Stock

The theme of energy efficiency must nowadays be correlated to new requirements for the adaptation of existing buildings to performance standards. This issue must be further addressed within the domain of technique, through the contribution and methods offered by scientific innovation. The strategy proposed here aims to investigate, optimize and promote new construction technologies to face the problem of energy retrofitting for existing building stock, combining innovative assumptions and tools, customised on different building typologies. The on-going research carried out by the CIRI – Centro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca Industriale (University of Bologna) aims to optimize the exploitation of innovative sustainable materials to develop a continuous envelope system for existing buildings that could guarantee high performance. The project seeks to use a new class of materials, named geopolymers, which are highly regarded for their excellent physical, mechanical and thermal properties. The technological solution proposed is the application of an ecological material layer, obtained through the geopolymerization process of ceramic industrial waste, in order to generate a new envelope system. The direct exploitation of geopolymer-based products (plasters and panels) has been envisaged, and this geopolymerization technology would seek to optimize energy efficiency in the architectural design through the recycling of industrial ceramic waste.