Thermal performances and environmental analysis of a new composite building material based on gypsum plaster and chicken feathers waste

•The composite materials can contribute to improve the thermal comfort in buildings.•Spectral characterization were performed.•Transient hot-plate, steady hot-plate, guarded hot plate and flash methods were used.•The thermal conductivity, thermal effusivity and thermal diffusivity measurements are discussed.•The dynamic thermal simulations were performed on a typical residential building.•The reduction of CO2 emissions allows to avoid the harmful impact on the environment. The main objective of this paper is the improvement of the thermal properties of gypsum plaster through mixing it with chicken feather waste, in order to be used in walls and ceiling mortars. The thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and thermal effusivity of the studied samples were measured using the steady hot plate, the flash, and the transient hot plate methods, respectively. The obtained results show that the increase in the mass fraction of chicken feathers resulted in a significant improvement consisting of a reduction of the material thermal properties. This reduction was up to 36% for the thermal conductivity, 13% for the thermal diffusivity, 23% for the thermal effusivity, and 16% for volumetric thermal capacity. These results were employed to perform dynamic thermal simulations on a typical residential building using the Design Builder software. Results showed that the incorporation of the composite material with 5% of chicken feathers waste mass fraction in the external walls and the roof of the studied building decreased the cooling consumption in summer by 24,8% and the heating requirement in winter by 29,40% and considerably reduced the CO2 emissions by approximately 408 kg per unit area.