The construction industry is a major contributor to global carbon emissions, and floors systems taking the highest carbon footprint percentage as the building component. Building materials are mostly relying on non-bio-based materials, emitting harmful gases. To address this, there is an urgent need to adopt bio based, renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable materials in construction. Therefore, the thesis explores fully bio-based, recyclable and bio-degradable materials for sandwich structural floor panels as alternative to petroleum-based products.

The sandwich panel consists of a PLA/Flax fibre facesheet and a novel foamed PLA core. For the core material, various bio-based materials were tested, demonstrating these novel bio-based materials have potentials as building materials. The natural fiber reinforced composite sandwich panel is mechanically tested showing the core material resist great shear forces, and with the results the panel is optimized for residential floors, having a lower carbon footprint and weight but is costlier than conventional concrete hollow cores. The PLAX panel shows promise due to its full recyclability, lightweight nature, fully bio-based composition, and low environmental impact as well as highlight the sustainable and carbon-neutral construction practices to transform the construction industry.