Acoustic and thermal characterization of a novel sustainable material incorporating recycled microplastic waste

Worldwide, high plastic consumption leads to huge waste production. Macro and microplastic litter affects habitats everywhere, but especially marine environments. Unfortunately, plastic is particularly difficult to retrieve from the sea, since it tends to break up into smaller pieces due to wind, water movement and solar irradiation. Hence, its end-of-life handling and management has become a major issue. Most of the time recovered plastic waste is landfilled or burnt, since it is composed of an assortment of different polymers and/or has been polluted by salt or other marine substances. For these reasons, new recycling methods for marine litter, pursuing cleaner production criteria, are urgently required. This article presents a brand-new sustainable material, an eco-friendly foam made of waste microplastics incorporated into a bio-matrix. This novel open-cell material can be used as acoustic and thermal insulation for industrial, civil and maritime applications. Thus, an in-depth characterization is depicted, providing evidence of very good insulation properties and revealing how microplastics can be used to customize final acoustic and thermal performances.