High-performance ceramic materials may be difficult to decompose after being discarded, and construction polymer materials are often difficult to degrade. Composite building materials also make their use difficult due to their complex composition. Clay ceramic concrete blocks are lightweight, have good thermal insulation and fire resistance, but Its production requires high energy consumption; plastic steel doors and windows are stronger, more durable and have thermal insulation properties than steel windows and aluminum alloy windows, but they involve high energy costs and will impose a serious burden on the environment during disposal; shaft kiln cement may also Because of its low energy consumption in primary production, it is considered to be more environmentally friendly than rotary kiln cement. Even for the cement industry, which is notorious for releasing greenhouse gas CO2, we should also see the use process of its finished cement concrete. Absorption of CO2 by the naturally occurring carbonization process. To produce 1 ton of cement clinker, about 1 ton of CO2 is released due to the decomposition of coal and limestone. In addition to the CO2 released by coal burning (accounting for about 40%), the amount of CO2 released by the decomposition of calcium carbonate during cement burning can be slowly carbonized. It is completely absorbed by the cement concrete during the process.
In order to evaluate the environmental coordination performance of building materials, the life cycle assessment method (Life Cycle Assessment, referred to as LCA) needs to be used. The life cycle assessment method is a method that evaluates the environmental pollution, energy and resource consumption and resource impact of materials throughout their life cycle. Although it has been introduced in some monographs and has entered ISO standards, for building materials, LCA is still a method under research and development.
Regarding the development methods of ecological building materials and the improvement of environmental coordination, scholar Professor Sanmoto Ryoichi summarized four types of innovative methods and the evaluation of their respective contributions to environmental coordination, namely, product improvement, redesign, functional innovation and system Innovation. It is not difficult to understand that system innovation is time-consuming to improve environmental coordination, and system innovation is difficult. However, product improvement is relatively simple, and the improvement of environmental coordination is relatively small. What needs to be pointed out here is that for a certain material, the development of ecology or environmental coordination does not follow these four orders.
Regarding the development strategy of ecological building materials, there are still some questions that are difficult to answer. For example, environmental coordination and performance do not always develop in harmony with each other. The author believes that the development of ecological building materials cannot be at the expense of excessive performance. However, the requirements for the performance of ecological building materials do not necessarily require high performance, but refer to excellent performance or performance that meets the requirements. Building materials with low performance will inevitably affect their durability and functionality. If the LCA method is used for evaluation, performance in order to save energy and use waste in the production process cannot improve the environmental coordination of the material.
