Introducing Bio-composites

Bio-based composites provide promising low embodied-carbon alternatives to technical materials. They are made from renewable resources with carbon sequestration characteristics, and with significant reductions in waste treatment, landfilling and associated greenhouse-gas emissions.  In this video, Professor Mauro Overend gives an overview of what bio-composite materials are made from as well as their fabrication methods.

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Main Takeaways

  • There is a growing interest in these bio-composite materials because they are relatively strong and cheap, they are produced from local renewable sources, and they can be completely recyclable.

  • Composites made from bio-based constituent materials, namely use natural plant fibres, which give the composite its strength and stiffness, and the matrix (or resin), which binds the fibres together and protects the fibres from the environment.

  • There are many alternative fabrication methods for bio-composites ranging from low tech methods to high tech ones.

Author

Mauro Overend
Mauro Overend
Professor

Mauro Overend is Professor Structural Design & Mechanics, at AET. He obtained his bachelor degree in architecture and civil engineering in Malta. He then exchanged one island for another, moving to the UK where he finished his PhD in structural mechanics in 2002. Working for an engineering consultancy in London got him involved in some cutting-edge building projects before his inquisitive nature led him to research positions at the universities of Nottingham and Cambridge.

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The platform is intended to provide with content on either circularity or pedagogy for and about circularity. It is one of the outcomes of the Circular Impulse Initiative (CII), a project intending to enhance the integration of circularity in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment education. The platform mainly aims to help tutors get better acquainted with circularity in the built environment by providing a series of resources on this subject that they can either view to get better informed or directly share with their students in class or online. A large number of the Faculty's professors and researchers have contributed substantially both in creating a coherent narrative for circularity in the built environment as well as further elaborating on different aspects of it. Besides this one, a new platform for interaction and direct exchange was also established in parallel that we call ‘Educators for Circularity‘. This one offers the opportunity for all of us to meet and share our experiences and learn from one another.

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