Breathaboard: A novel, low-CO2 wallboard

Adaptavate is set to disrupt conventional gypsum-based wallboard markets with its innovative low-CO₂ and carbon-negative technologies.

Global Gypsum (GG): Please could you introduce Adaptavate to our readers?

Tom Robinson (TR): Adaptavate is a revolutionary company that seeks to decarbonise the construction sector. Our outlook is to accommodate the planet’s needs first and make a profit as a by-product. We are doing this by developing new commodity materials with low-, zero-, and even negative-embodied CO₂.

The company’s first target is to decarbonise the wallboard sector, a sector that currently has a capacity of around 13,000Mm²/yr. This work began during my Masters at the Centre for Alternative Technology and led me to found Adaptavate in 2014. While working on mixtures for a low-carbon wallboard, I developed Breathaplasta, a replacement for gypsum plaster, in 2016. This has since developed into a range of three ISO9001 products that can be bought from wholesalers across the UK. As the name suggests, Breathaplasta is a breathable solution.

After the launch of Breathaplasta, the company was able to focus fully on low-CO₂ wallboard. There were various hurdles, not least Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic but, after considerable research and development, we were able to develop Breathaboard - a complementary, low-CO₂ product that can be used instead of - or alongside - conventional gypsum-based wallboard. From the outside, it looks and feels exactly the same. It is 12.5mm thick, 2.4m long by 1.2m wide, with square or tapered edges. It has a density similar to gypsum wallboard. You can cut it, score it, snap it and screw through it, just like regular wallboard.

GG: What is Breathaboard made from?

TR: While it has a conventional paper liner on each side, the rest of the composition is completely different. It contains no gypsum. Instead, the core is made by combining calcium carbonate-derived binders, fibrous byproducts from various sectors, and water. This mixture is extruded between two rolls of paper in a continuous process, much like conventional wallboard. However, there is no drying step. Instead, we cure the boards in a chamber. This can be sped up by using our patented process that uses CO₂-rich flue gas, from industrial processes. This recarbonates the binder in hours, rather than decades.

This means that, while the main board-making part of the process is the same, the beginning and end are quite different. We replace mixing with hydration, mixing and deposition and replace the dryer with curing.

GG: What kinds of fibres are used?

TR: The fibres can be from a wide range of sources. For our low-CO₂ technology, they are often food crop byproducts, things like oil seed rape, rice husks, hemp, cotton, indeed whatever is available locally. The only processing needed is to grind them to the correct particle size.

For our CO₂-negative technology we use previously unusable, mainly cellulosic, waste streams from the construction, paper and pulp, agroforestry, and biofuel sectors, by thermally converting them into a stable state. This material, unlike simply using the fibres themselves, is considered to be permanent storage of CO₂. This, combined with the uptake of CO₂ in the curing step, is sufficient to take the product into negative CO₂ emissions territory.

GG: How do you calculate this?

TR: We have built an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) calculation tool that looks at the lifecycle analysis of the whole system boundary at any scale, anywhere in the world with any input or output. This is accredited to ISO 15804A2 by the Building Research Establishment. This is not greenwashing, it is integral to how we design our building materials, and will continue to do so as we develop other products, including those that can bear loads.

GG: What scale has this process reached?

TR: Our first-of-a-kind pilot line in Bristol, UK, was commissioned in the first quarter of 2024. It is essentially the world’s smallest wallboard line, making some tens of thousands of m² of Breathaboard per year. Don’t let the scale fool you. The line is fully-integrated and continuous, just like it would be at industrial scale.

So far, the pilot line has proven that we can manufacture Breathaboard to specification. The product is currently undergoing certification with the BBA, the most trusted certification mark in the UK, with the anticipation that this will be complete during the third quarter of 2024. We are also obtaining ETA standards for Europe and, as we work with partners around the world, we will obtain certificates for each territory. The process of gaining certification in each individual market is a big headache, but one that will open up many doors for us.

Also, aside from not containing any gypsum, we have also shown that Breathaboard could be fully compliant with EN520 in terms of all performance criteria. This is a massive milestone for our business. There’s also an agreement with a major building materials supplier to put together a warranty for our non-load-bearing partition system. Combined, these developments will open up a massive section of the global wallboard market, as 40 - 50% of wallboard is used in non-load-bearing partition applications.

GG: You’re going to need a bigger plant!

TR: Yes we are - and we are already preparing to build a small commercial-scale factory in the UK. Fundraising is underway. We are also interested to have discussions with global wallboard partners that want to bring this technology to their own markets, under a licensing model for what we call Adaptavate Core Technology. This is not the wallboard itself, but the technology to produce different wallboards in different markets depending on the available input of fibres and what the market demands.

For example, Breathaboard works in the UK, but we don’t imagine the same board, with the same brand name, being applicable to Spain, the US or China. There will be many ways to tailor products for thickness, density, different types of edges, and so on, just like with conventional wallboard, but the paramaters are for individual producers to decide.

We liken this approach to Gore-Tex, which is licenced to different clothing manufacturers for use in their own products. Manufacturers will be able to say ‘Made with Adaptavate Core Technology.’ Existing production facilities will be adapted to incorporate our process and new ones will be built next to CO₂ emitters and sources of fibrous byproducts.

I think that we will see a lot of developments over the next five years. We will be on our way to addressing 10% of the existing market in six key territories that we are targeting by the end of the current decade and well on our way to decarbonising the global wallboard sector.

GG: Thank you for your time today Tom.

TR: You are welcome!