Novel Approach to Making Environmentally Friendly Plaster: A Moisture Buffer Value of Plaster Made of Wastepaper and Different Glues

This article deals with the reuse of wastepaper. Three components were used to make traditional paper plaster: wastepaper, glue, and water. Whether the glues used to make paper plaster and the quantities of those glues have an impact on the moisture buffering value (MBV) of paper plaster was studied. The scope of the Nordtest method is to evaluate the MBV for materials exposed to indoor air. The test intended to simulate daily variations with relative humidity between 75 % during 8 hours and 33 % during 16 hours.

The test specimen was made according to the recipe which contained the following: waste-paper (newspaper paper), three different types of glue (potato starch (Amylum Solani) C₆H₁₀O₅, wallpaper glue Metylan Universal Premium (produced by Henkel), and methylcellulose C₆H₇O₂(OH)_x(OCH₃)_y, and water. Different percentages of glue were used in the specimens. Potato starch (Amylum Solani) C₆H₁₀O₅ clearly increased the moisture buffering ability.

The tests performed showed that the composition and quantity of glue affected the MBV of paper plaster. The MBV of all the specimens remained in the range of 2.08–2.48 [g/(m²·%RH)@8/16h]. The largest MBV was 2.48[g/(m²·%RH)@8/16h], and it was registered in the case of a mixture that had a glue made from 100 g of potato starch (Amylum Solani) C₆H₁₀O₅ per litre of water and the smallest MBV was 2.08[g/(m²·%RH)@8/16h], and it contained glue mixture made of 20 g methylcellulose per litre of water. As a result of the current study, an environmentally friendly plaster with high moisture buffer value using wastepaper as a component of this material was developed.