Projects

#37 Australian Timber Fibre Insulation Scoping Study

The Australian timber industry generates significant quantities of low-grade by-products, in the form of chips and sawdust, through the manufacturing of sawn and mass timber products. Most problematic among these are the H2 and H3 treated products that are not currently re-purposed into other products.

In addition to this timber waste stream, there are large amounts of other low-to-no value feedstock such as bark (currently exceeding 400,000 tonnes annually), single use timber pallets and other non-timber waste streams such as shredded plastic fibres. These by-products have the potential to be manufactured into higher value fibre insulation products for the Australian market. Currently, such products are not manufactured in Australia with importers servicing the market instead.

This presents a potential opportunity to divert considerable quantities of waste from landfill to produce a high performance, locally made, low carbon, natural fibre insulation product for the domestic and commercial building industry in Australia.

This project was a scoping study which assessed the techno-economic feasibility and opportunities associated with the creation of a timber fibre insulation manufacturing facility in Australia.

Researchers on project included: Dr Philip Christopher, Dr Benoit Belleville, Dr Neda Nematollahi,
Dr Lu Aye & Prof Tuan Ngo.