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Towards more eco-friendly building materials, nonwoven fabrics from natural-based (flax) and recycled (textile waste) fibers were produced and incorporated into the cementitious composite panels. The textile waste fibers were recovered from two different clothing sources including fashion and fire-proofing garments. The flexural and durability (through forced wet-dry aging cycles) properties of the laminated sandwich-like cement panels reinforced with four different nonwoven fabrics (flax, treated flax, hybrid fashion textile waste/flax, and fire-proofing textile waste) were analyzed. Based on the results, all four different composites showed promising flexural-hardening behaviors in unaged conditions, especially those reinforced with the treated flax or hybrid fabrics which reached flexural strength of more than 16 MPa and energy ab-sorption index of more than 10 kJ/m2. After wet-dry aging, the post-cracking performance of all composites degraded due to fiber embrittlement, this was more evident for untreated flax composite (reduced by ~65%). Nonetheless, the treated flax fabric composite and hybrid fabric composite containing silica fume could show a better performance after aging. The authors express their gratitude to the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (Government of Spain) for the financial support received under the scope of the projects RECYBUILDMAT (PID2019-108067RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033); 3D-Crete (2019PROD00066/IU68-017262-Codi project: J-02696); and CREEF (PID2019-108978RB-C32/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). The first author acknowledges the Banco Santander for the Research Scholarships (Postdoc-UPC 2022 Grant).

Large amounts of nonrenewable resources are depleted by the construction industry in addition to the generation of million tons of mineral waste and carbon dioxide gas every year. For the sake of a more sustainable consumption pattern of building materials, as well as for reducing the waste flux to landfills, the use of recycled materials and wastes should be researched and motivated. One of the promising wastes is textile waste from residues of the garments and textile industries. The recycling and reusing of textile waste would be beneficial for reducing CO2 emissions and energy intake. In this sense, there are already some studies regarding the thermal behavior of this type of material, however, the engineering design properties of textile waste fiber reinforced cement composites to identify the proper application have not been deeply investigated. Hence, the objective of this study was to evaluate the potentiality of using textile waste fiber as reinforcement in the cement paste. To this end, the composites with three different treatments were made and the optimum treatment was chosen based on the flexural test. The result is the feasibility of using this kind of fiber as reinforcement of mortar elements with dewatering treatment. This work was supported by the Spanish Government, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación [grant number PID2019-108067RB-I00]. Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::12 - Producció i Consum Responsables