In light of the exhaustion of certain natural resources and the limited utilization of others, the building sector has to make a change in its procurement, prioritizing renewable materials or those from recycling streams. What are these resources? In what quantity and how are they utilized worldwide?
WOOD
Production:
4 Gm3/year (resinous trees, deciduous trees, and tropical timber).
Use: Half serves to produce energy (80% in emerging countries), the other half is used as lumber (packing, construction, carpentry) and industrial wood (panels, furnishings, and papermaking pulp).
NATURAL SILICA
Even if natural silica forms 28% of the earth’s crust, it is a critical material. It makes up three of the most important raw materials: sand, industrial silica, and diatomaceous earth.
Industrial silica:
Production: 380 Mt/year worldwide (2022).
Use: 15% for glass
manufacture (which contains over 65% of it), around 5% for foundry
operations, 3% for mineral filler (paints, plastics, resins, etc.), 3% for construction products. Over half of the industrial silica in the United States is used for hydraulic fracturing and concreting hydrocarbon extraction wells. It also serves to
produce metallurgical
silicon (3.5 Mt/year)
for electrometallurgy
(electronic and photovoltaic components) and synthetic silica production, including silica fume (1.8 Mt/year
worldwide) injected into high-performance concretes.
IRON
Production: 1,6 Gt, of ore. 1,885 Gt of steel (2022).
Use: Iron and steel are
primarily used in construction and for infrastructure (52%), followed by
mechanical equipment (16%), automobiles (12%), and metal objects (10%).
In the EU, 37% of the iron
is used for construction. Worldwide, 50% of steel is destined for the building sector and transport
infrastructure.
PLANT FIBERS
Production: 128 Mt/year of bamboo (estimation), 26 Mt/an of hemp, flax, and cotton.
Use: Bamboo is used for construction (32%) and
furnishings (33%). Hemp (245,000 t in 2021) serves
as an additive or covering material. Flax (1 Mt in 2020) is used as insulation or
a structuring element for panels. Cotton (25 Mt in 2022), primarily destined
for the textile (60%),
automobile, and furnishing (35%) industries, is also a component of insulation and construction materials.
CLAYS
Production :
Specialty clays* 17 Mt/year, kaolinitic clays25 Mt/year.
Use: Clay is used (raw) to
manufacture sustainable
insulating aggregates or concretes. It serves (once fired) to produce ceramics, concrete, bricks, paints,
insulation, fiber glass.
* specialty clays: clays assigned to construction and more generally to processing for materials
Sand :
Production: 50 Gt/year, dont 6 Gt/year of which is coastal and marine sand.
Use: for construction (2020), 2/3 of which is for concrete, and the rest for roads and backfilling.
Diatomaceous earth:
Production: 2,5 Mt/year (2022)
Use: For filtration (50%), manufacturing cement (30%), mineral filler (paints, 15%), insulation, abrasive materials, absorbents (5%).
GYPSUM
Production : 150 Mt/year (2022)
Use:
Gypsum serves to make plaster: gypsum board and primers (40%), specialty concretes (57%). There is
a synthetic gypsum, desulfogypsum (139 Mt worldwide) obtained by the desulfurization of flue gas from burning coal. After processing, this gypsum is reconditioned into plaster.
ALUMINIUM
Production : 69 Mt/year of primary aluminum (2022) 37 Mt/year of recycled or secondary aluminum (2021).
Use:Due to its growing use in low-carbon technologies, aluminum is used in construction (25%), transport (23 %), electricity (12%), equipment (11%), sheets (9%), and packaging (8%).
ANIMAL FIBERS
Production: 1,8 Mt/year of wool.
Use: Wool is used in construction (7 to 15%)
for insulation and floor
coverings and filtration
(industry). Other animal fibers such as duck and goose feathers are
appreciated for their
extremely effective thermal performance.
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