On the way to demonstrating the benefits of bio-based materials for the construction sector ISOBIO aims to develop new bio-based insulation panels and renders, and to scale them for mainstream adoption by the building and construction industry. The focus is now on the challenging demonstration phase. © Creative commons ISOBIO innovation partners are bonded by a unique goal: to design a bio-based insulation material with the right chemical and mechanical properties to tackle water absorption, fire resistance and moisture buffering while ensuring high thermal conductivity. These essential properties provide material resistance as well as indoor wellbeing and comfort. In February 2017, partners convened on the premises of TWI in Cambridge for their mid-term project meeting. It was an opportunity for them to assess the research and preliminary prototyping, and to outline the regulatory and market challenges ahead. Following this meeting, the final composition of the bio-materials is now just around the corner. As part of their research, the Universities of Bath and Rennes have examined the characterisation of bio-materials and the development of composite materials (including the insulating core and the composition of the external layer). These research results form the basis for the technical developments by industrial partners Cavac, BCB and Claytec. The innovation lies in the feeding of knowledge from the labs into the industrialisation phrase. After testing and prototyping, ISOBIO is poised to reveal a bio-based product design offering all the right properties for a greener building and construction industry: high insulation, low embodied energy and carbon, and hydrothermal efficiency. Keywords biobased materials, bioeconomy, construction, insulation, thermal comfort Countries United Kingdom
