The PLASTER⁺ product consists to 75% of sand, to about 20% of loam/clay and to about 5% of a new innovative fibre, and is a real earth plaster without any chemical additives. The expectations for the promising market introduction of the innovated PLASTER⁺ product are based on the following advantages of real earth plaster in comparison to conventional plasters like cement, lime or gypsum:

• Earth plaster leads to a positive charisma of the building.
• Earth plaster regulates temperature and air-moisture.
• Earth plaster is fireproof and durable and has good insulation properties.
• Earth plaster reduces the energy costs for a building.
• Earth plaster is non-toxic, emission-free and reduces the risks for allergies
• Earth plaster absorbs pollutants and odours form the air.
• Earth plaster has a very low sound transmission, natural warm texture and colours.
• Earth plaster is easy to maintain and has a huge potential for personal creativity.
• Earth is locally available and a recyclable resource.

 

PLASTER⁺ in comparison to other earth plasters
The partner SMEs are convinced that this new earth plaster mixture can be the first plaster product that is able to remove the two biggest barriers for a competitive market introduction of true earth plasters:

1. Insufficient quality of common earth-plaster products.
   Earth plasters need special fibre additives in order to evolve their high quality. Many products showed large cracks during drying process or fungus grow due their straw content and let to complaints. It is necessary to optimise the characteristics in order to minimize the shrinkage, to enlarge the tensile bending strength, to enhance the stability against abrasion and shocks and to achieve a high absorption rate for balance of indoor air humidity. The new plaster product has the potential to achieve claimed quality criteria.
2. Missing efficient industrialised production technology.
   There are no professional technology production plants on the European market which are able to produce high quantities of high quality earth plaster in an efficient way, which are competitive to the conventional plaster products like lime-cement plasters, lime plasters and lime-gypsum plasters. Common batch and partly hand made processing technologies for earth plasters and existing industrial processes for the production of cement, gypsum and lime bonded plasters are not suitable for the production of high quality earth plasters.

 

Taking into account the market potential for PLASTER⁺ the proposed project can improve the competitiveness, business opportunities and the qualification of the SME participants and of other related stakeholders like architects and construction companies. Especially the SME driven sectors such as planning, construction, maintenance, refurbishment and repair will profit from this development. The use of local available building materials will give qualified SMEs the opportunity to develop quick and cost-effective refurbishment solutions for house owners under standardised conditions.