New Eco-Friendly Drywall Wins Popular Science Award

Serious Materials has won Popular Science's "Best of What's New" Award in green tech innovation for their eco-friendly drywall called EcoRock.

What makes this drywall so special? EcoRock requires 80 percent less energy to produce and cuts CO2 output by 90 percent compared to traditional gypsum-based drywall. These reductions in energy and CO2 are accomplished by eliminating heaters, dryers, calcining and burning of fossil fuels. The material congeals without heat and no mining is necessary in its production. It uses 85 percent recycled content and is fully recyclable. The company claims it holds up even better than gypsum drywall.

In contrast, traditional drywall is made by mining and then roasting gypsum rock in 500 degree kilns. Drywall factories produce about 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gases a year.

EcoRock is just one of the company's many green building products like ThermaProof insulated windows and sustainable sound-proof doors. EcoRock costs $14 - $20 per 4x8-foot sheet, about the same as high-end drywall and will be available starting in 2009.

via GoodCleanTech and Popular Science

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written by Rob Chant, November 15, 2008

I love these seemingly small innovations. Not only more eco-friendly, but generally better anyway (and I wouldn't be surprised to find it was cheaper in the long run too).

It's taken me ages to realise that 'drywall' is what we call plasterboard in the UK smilies/wink.gif

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written by Clinch, November 15, 2008

Dry wall is plasterboard? (I'm also from the UK)
Never realised that, but drywall does seem a silly name anyway (I mean, aren't most walls dry?).

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written by Rusty075, November 15, 2008

plasterboard is "dry", as opposed to old-fashioned plaster walls, which is wet plaster applied to studs and lathe and then troweled smooth before it dries.

Interesting product though. Anything that gets me another LEED point is fine by me. smilies/wink.gif

gypsum as by-product
written by Wouter, November 16, 2008

Hmm... isn't it so that cole fuel power plant have gypsum as by-product?

This by application of smoke gas desulphuration installations*. It converts sulphur (SO2) into gypsum.

So gypsum does not need to be obtained by mining and roasting.

* note in Dutch it's called: "rookgasinstallatie".

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written by David, November 19, 2008

Gypsum is a naturally occurring mineral, and is mined here in the USA. I have been to a couple of mines in CA. It is always nice when a better idea comes along, and is Greener.

DC Miller

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written by Diane, November 19, 2008

But what is "it" made of? The article mentions it's from recycled materials but not sure what is in the recipe.

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written by Linda, November 22, 2008

Think the coal burning plant by-product you're thinking of is fly ash - bad bad stuff, and it may be used in some joint compounds and finish muds. And, yeah, what is "it" (this sheetrock) made of?

This sounds like something I'm interested in using...

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written by Linda, November 22, 2008

License the technology
written by Steve, November 25, 2008

I'd love to see Serious Materials license the technology so that all drywall manufacturers could produce drywall this way. Otherwise these other competitors will use other measures (discounted pricing, etc.) to keep their product alive.

Not as eco-friendly as it appears
written by Green Truths, January 26, 2009

After reading the patent, this is nothing but a lighter portland cement board. The key thing Serious Materials has been able to do is to convince some portland cement suppliers to label their ultra-fines as waste. While the ultra fines in portand cement are not critical to cement production, they still require HUGE amounts of energy to produce, and still pollute just like any other material requireing HUGE amounts of energy to produce. Serious Materials has been very shrewd getting these fines listed as a by-product. Serious can now claim they use post-industrial recycled materials to make their product, and they don't bother to tell you these materials use as much or more energy than producing the plaster used to make gypsum drywall.

One final note. The material in Serious Materials core is VERY caustic. The high pH of the material is gonna be a real pain (literally) to the installers who route out light switches and electric outlets. These poor souls are gonna have some eye problems when they get the dust in their eyes. Oh well.....