«Healthy buildings: plasters for improved indoor comfort»

Abstract

The knowledge of biochar in plasters for the use of healthy building is still limited. Therefore, this thesis has a focus of biochar in cement and earth plasters. Already produced plasters with 0 %, 10 %, 20 % and 30 % per volume were used. The aim was to observe whether the biochar has a positive effect on controlling indoor humidity to improve the comfort of people. The water vapour resistance is therefore an important indicator. The method to calculate the water vapour resistance is the so-called dry cup test. In order to experiment not only on a small scale, a prototype was created to see if the experiments and the theory are in agreement. The comparison between earth plaster and biochar-cement plaster was done to see if the biochar can improve a plaster so far, that it becomes competitive with a material that is good in terms of moisture behaviour. It was observed that the plasters have a reduced water vapour factor with an increase of biochar content. Furthermore, a correlation between moisture buffer value and water vapour resistance was found. In conclusion, the biochar needs further investigation but in terms of moisture performance it improves the plasters.