Maldonado Alameda, AlexAlfocea Roig, AnnaHuete Hernández, SergioGiró Paloma, JessicaChimenos Ribera, Josep Ma.Formosa Mitjans, Joan2023-06-302023-06-302023-06-142352-7102https://hdl.handle.net/2445/200166The increasing use of synthetic fibres in clothing and the high quality of sheep wool fibre (SWF) from the Australian and New Zealand market leads to a decline in the interest in SWFs produced in European countries, considering them as waste that could be valorised within the framework of a circular economy. The use of natural fibre in cement-based composites presents the main issue of durability due to the alkaline pH media of conventional cement. The use of a low-pH cement could improve the viability of combining natural fibres in this low-pH cement as matrix for developing composites. One of these low-pH cements is magnesium phosphate cement (MPC). As a ceramic material the MPC presents high thermal conductivity (~1 W m-1 K-1) to be used as isolating material. The present work combines MPC formulated with an industrial by-product (low-grade magnesium oxide; LG-MgO) and Spanish SWF, to develop new sustainable cement-based materials (Sust-MPC-SWF) for thermal building insulation applications. The physical, thermal, and mechanical properties of Sust-MPC-SWF were evaluated to determine the optimal formulation through a design of experiments (DoE). Thirteen formulations designed by DoE were conducted with different sheep wool fibre/cement (SWF/C) and sheep wool fibre/extra water (SWF/EW) ratios. A statistical model was obtained and the optimal formulation (SWF/C = 0.36 and SWF/EW = 0.25) was validated. The increase in SWF content led to an enhancement of thermal and acoustic insulation properties of Sust-MPC-SWF, with similar results to other building materials commercialized with these features.application/pdfengcc-by-nc-nd (c) Maldonado Alameda, Alex et al., 2023https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/MagnesiCimentMaterials de construccióMagnesiumCementBuilding materialsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article7359762023-06-30info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess