STUDY OF ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY AND RELATED PROPERTIES OF BIOCHAR BUILDING MATERIALS

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and climate change have been one of the gravest challenges globally. The impact of climate change is foreseen to intensify which will pose an imminent threat. Such a threat has called for more efficient thermal insulation building materials to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission. Accompanied by rapid technology advancement and the 5th generation mobile network, another aggravating problem (for an urban country like Singapore) would be electromagnetic pollution and electromagnetic interference. The overarching aim of this study is to examine the use of mixed wood sawdust biochar (pyrolyzed in 500°C and 1000°C) as a coat on cementitious mortar to determine its potential to reduce the rate of heat transfer through the walls and to evaluate the performance of EMI shielding properties. The results demonstrate that the addition of biochar has a positive effect on improving the thermal insulation properties as it has recorded an average temperature difference of 4.59°C between the top surface and the bottom surface in the case of biochar-mortar composite with 6 wt% biochar. Additionally, the shielding effectiveness (SE) of biochar is obtained from Vector Network Analyzer in the frequency band 2.60 GHz - 3.95 GHz (S-Band). A SE of 5.89 dB was obtained at a frequency of 2.60 GHz in the case of biochar-mortar composite with 3.62 wt% biochar.