Exploring circular building material: transforming industrial and agricultural waste into 3D printable construction material

Abstract

Clothing is one of the basic needs of mankind. The textile industry produces the large amounts of fabric waste threatening the environment and contributes to a significant percentage of non-biodegradable waste. The massive amounts of textile waste dumped in landfills have led to growing environmental issues, which have forced the textile and fashion industry to adopt and practice sustainable waste management and disposal solutions. Recent research has shown that varieties of textile wastes, including pre- and post-consumer, may be treated and used successfully in building operations. This research paper aims to investigate the possibilities of using industrial textile waste and agricultural waste—specifically, textile residues of cotton fabric and cow dung that can be converted into environment friendly building materials. This research was conducted in two phases. The first phase included developing a mix using fabric waste to employ 3D printing technology. The material mix achieved in the first phase of several experiments was 3D printable. However, it was high density material and was unsuitable for light weight construction. The second phase involved to achieve a mix for lightweight blocks by replacing red soil with cow dung. The second phase achieved promising results to achieve lightweight blocks using fabric and cow dung. The findings of this study will help formulate experimentation techniques and methods to develop novel composite as well as sustainable material which could be adopted in the building construction.