Sheep Wool for Sustainable Architecture

Sheep wool is a natural material, already used for thermal insulation of pitched roofs, in the form of soft mats. The paper presents a research project called Cartonlana, concerning a new sheep wool-based product with two main innovative features: it is a stiff panel, unlike the existing soft wool mats; it has a low environmental impact, using local recycled sheep wool, otherwise disposed as special waste. Physical and chemical properties of Cartonlana panel were determined by measurements, in order to demonstrate its effectiveness as insulation for buildings: thermal conductivity, acoustic absorption coefficient, absorption of formaldehyde, thermal transmittance of a wall.