The global demand for fiber-based products is continuously increasing. The increased consumption and fast fashion current in the global clothing market generate a significant quantity of pre-and post-production waste that ends up in landfills and incinerators. The present study aims to obtain a new waste-based composite material panel for construction applications with improved mechanical properties that can replace traditional wood-based oriented strand boards (OSB). The new composite material is formed by using textile wastes as a reinforcement structure and a combination of bi-oriented polypropylene films (BOPP) waste, polypropylene non-woven materials (TNT) waste and virgin polypropylene fibers (PP) as a matrix. The mechanical properties of waste-based composite materials are modeled using the Taguchi method based on orthogonal arrays to maximize the composite characteristics’ mechanical properties. Experimental data validated the theoretical results obtained.

In the last years, research applications in the construction sector have taken a different turn due to rapid urbanization and the necessity to protect the environment and create a balance between the natural and built environments. Taking into account the fact that the thermal efficiency of buildings has an important influence over the environmental performances of the construction sector, the civil engineering specialists have tried to develop and use different new solutions in order to improve this essential building characteristic. Thus, different new materials have been used with the goal of reducing the overall thermal transmittance of the envelope elements and of the total energy consumption needed for heating and cooling. Perlite is one of the materials that have been considered for developing new energy efficient construction applications. The main goal of the present paper is to present all the relevant solutions that have been developed and used in the construction sector that consider perlite as a component part. The present study is the first part of a more extensive research program that takes under evaluation the possibility of using perlite as a thermal insulating material for different constructions.