ARTILEA

Latxa wool waste was named a priority problem for cattle farming and cheese industry in the Basque Country and neighboring regions. As a part of the investigation about utilization of economically unprofitable waste in aforementioned sectors, we developed several strategies of its application in the construction industry as a green alternative to conventional synthetic polymer-based products.

Latxa wool is too rough to be applied in the textile industry making it waste for cattle farmers, requiring expenses for its utilization. On the other hand, Latxa wool has prominent thermal and acoustic properties, mechanical behavior and microstructure properties, which we considered to be of interest for the concrete producing companies aiming quality improvement product (i.e., outdoor and indoor tiles, poured concrete in construction) manifested in mechanical reinforcement and prolonged lifecycle. After studying other analogs present on market and considering our findings of improved physical and chemical properties of wool reinforced concrete and price-quality ratio, we consider Latxa wool a strong competitor on the market. We consider processing 26 tons of raw wool waste per year and looking for local large scale downstream users to collaborate with.

For this reason, the root of the problem is established and it was possible to verify that the structure of the thread has fire retardant properties, its sound absorption capacity and, in addition, it is 42 times more resistant and long than the merino sheep thread, making it very useful as a composite for the elaboration of materials in construction and interior design.

We believe that this will lead your industry and your customers to greater advances for a responsible and friendly construction in communion with nature. As an additive value, we consider implementation of our product will easy international ecological certification process as big as the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) Certification, the leading ecological certificate for concrete producing industry in Europe.