Long before plastic bags made out of seaweed existed, long before paper straws and compostable utensils had become the norm, Professor Julee Herdt recognized the beauty — and the potential — in organic materials.
Herdt, who teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, has been working on green building technology her entire career. Most notably, she has developed a system of high-performance, sustainable building materials constructed entirely from biomatter and recycled organic waste.
This building materials line, which the university described recently as "groundbreaking," is patented and named BioSIPs®, with SIPs meaning structural insulated panels. It's composed entirely of things like paper, agriculture waste, soy, manure fibers, hemp, flowers, forest wood waste, and more — and it's all fully renewable, repulpable, and recyclable.
"Carbon-negative buildings constructed from BioSIPs climate-positive and health-supportive products exceed energy-efficiency standards for reaching the highest environmental and construction ratings," the school boasted in its article on Herdt's research.
The materials originally premiered at a 2002 competition hosted by the Department of Energy, where teams were tasked with inventing high-performance, low-carbon and renewable-powered buildings. Herdt's teams won the grand prize twice, in both 2002 and 2005.
"A full-scale BioSIPs solar home, tested in real-time against a series of standard and sustainable solar home designs, outperformed all others in energy efficiency, constructability, environmental standards, and occupant comfort," the university reported, "making them ideal for all types of construction and especially high seismic, wind, and snow situations."
Traditional building materials like cement, steel, and aluminum may offer similar durability, but their real cost is in the polluting emissions their production generates. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the built environment sector is "by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a staggering 37% of global emissions."
Much of this planet-warming pollution is generated operationally, through powering, heating and cooling the buildings, but the materials alone contribute to nearly a third of those emissions, per the World Green Building Council.
Conversely, BioSIPs have the potential to revolutionize the industry. Last year, Herdt partnered with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to work on a grant-funded project with the Department of Defense, helping to slash the Army's construction-related emissions by 30%.
And continuing with her contributions, Herdt has also pioneered MycoBioSIPs, which utilize mushroom insulation to make the entire system free of petroleum. This means that materials made from MycoBioSIPs are fully compostable and can contribute to improving soil health at the end of their usable life cycle.
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"The BioSIPs invention actually consumes society's waste and diverts tons of trash into valuable products for safe, strong, and energy-efficient buildings," Herdt said in her 2015 patent announcement. "There is great beauty and value in waste materials. It just takes the right processes and methods to find it, and with BioSIPs, we've invented and now patented these techniques."
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