Durability of Eco-Friendly Strain-Hardening Cementitious Composite incorporating Recycled Textile Waste Fiber and Silica Fume

To reach carbon neutrality, the use of more eco-friendly building materials derived from recycled resources and industrial by-products has been widely encouraged. The use of Portland cement (PC) and concrete as the most used material in the world, after water, ends in the release of million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. On the other hand, fast fashion in the garment industry has resulted in a massive volume of textile waste (TW) that ends up in landfills worldwide. In this regard, a cementitious composite containing industrial by-products as a partial replacement of PC reinforced with recycled TW fibers could be a viable option in terms of both durability and sustainability. In this study, the durability of the hybrid TW/falx nonwoven fabric-reinforced cement composite modified with 30% Silica Fume (SF) was investigated by determining the effect of accelerated wet /dry cycles on the mechanical behavior (through the flexural test) and microstructural characteristics (through scanning and backscat-tered electron microscope). The results show that there was a negligible difference between the mechanical properties of the laminated composite treated with SF with respect to the one without SF in unaged conditions. Nonetheless, after accelerated aging, the fibers in the former could maintain their strength and flexibility, resulting in the composite with better post-cracking mechanical parameters by 40%.