Investigation of the effects of boron addition on thermal and mechanical properties of perlite based thermal insulation materials

Technological developments and advances in material science offer many materials that will make our daily life easier. Many of these materials we use are hydrocarbon polymers that are easily shaped, inexpensive, and obtained as by-products of crude oil. These polymers, which we use in our buildings for the purpose of saving energy by making use of the heat insulation method, are extremely resistant to burning and can create conditions that may endanger human life in case of a possible fire. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of the addition of boron compounds, which can replace hydrocarbon polymers consisting of styrene, which are used to provide heat and sound insulation in our buildings and which are abundant in our country, on the mechanical and thermal properties of perlite-based thermal insulation material and to contribute to the studies in this field. As a result of the tests applied to the samples developed in the laboratory environment, improvements in mechanical properties were observed. While a maximum increase of 34% was achieved in the unit volume weight value of the material, an increase of 50% in the uniaxial compressive strength, 49% in the three-point bending test and a maximum of 24% in the thermal conductivity coefficient was achieved and the thermal conductivity coefficient of the sample with this increase was 0.066 W/mK. As a result of the non-flammability test, in the thermal camera images of the materials kept 5 cm away from the flame of our furnace for 5 minutes, one side finds 900 C degrees, while the other side remains at 38.6 C.