Innovation to the service of sustainability. An assesment of the performance of lime-cane and cement-cane bricks

In the last decades, experimentation on building materials has concentrated on reconsidering products for the construction industry in a more eco-friendly way. Today, these products are finding more and more space in a specific context of economic, energy and environmental crises, especially when their performance can be attested to values that are not at all lower than those of commonly used materials. In this particular context, experimentation on organic bricks (usually in lime-hemp) is introduced, for the production of insulating, breathable and durable masonry walls, which can be used either in the case of new construction or the renovation of an existing one. The presented work aims at assessing the mechanical and thermal response of lime (or lime-cement) organic bricks reinforced with Arundo Donax (common cane), a material that is abundantly present on the Sicilian territory, thus easily available and affordable. The experimentation is based on two objectives: the first is to verify the possibility of reusing the waste material from the processing of the cane destined for other building uses; the second is to obtain a product that is competitive compared to the current organic brick in lime-hemp and in general compared to the other blocks for external walls on the market. For this purpose, the performances of different design mix solutions, tested mechanically and thermally, have been verified. Investigations have shown that the product analysed in the formulations selected, objectively achieve appreciable and competitive results compared to other commercially available products.