MgO boards to disrupt construction industry, report claims

This article was originally published in issue 47 of Passive House Plus magazine. Want immediate access to all back issues and exclusive extra content? Click here to subscribe for as little as €15, or click here to receive the next issue free of charge

A factory-made, non-insulating sheathing board product, MgO boards can be used for applications including wall and ceiling linings, flooring, tile backing and a range of other uses. A type of mineral cement, magnesium oxide is composed of magnesium and oxygen.

The case for MgO is made in a white paper, Magnesium Oxide Panels: Emergence of a Modern Building Material, by materials scientist Dr Steven Doggett and building scientist Jarrett Davis of US-based building science research company Built Environments Inc.

According to Doggett and Davis, MgO boards are comparable to plasterboard or cement board, but with “much improved characteristics” related to fire resistance, weatherability, strength, and resistance to mould and mildew, among other benefits.

“The advantages of MgO are significant,” they state. “When compared to Portland cement, MgO panels offer greater flexural strength and higher resistance to fastener withdrawal. Fire resistance rivals that of gypsum panels while providing significantly greater impact and water resistance. Unlike wood-based panels, MgO is dimensionally stable when exposed to moisture. And unlike gypsum, it will not disintegrate during freezethaw cycling.”

Additional benefits listed include MgO’s high resistance to microbial and insect degradation and moisture performance including high water vapour permeance, efficient drying and moisture buffering in a manner similar to wood and gypsum. “In short, MgO confers the best attributes of each conventional material while offering additional advantages uniquely its own,” the paper states.

Health and safety benefits

According to Doggett and Davis, magnesium oxide is fundamentally free of harmful additives. “It contains only trace amounts of silicas, if any, and is free of asbestos, formaldehyde, and volatile organic compounds,” they state. “Quality MgO panels made free of such additives are considerably less hazardous than comparable cementitious materials. Cutting requires no specialized personal protective equipment (PPE), though eye protection, dust masks, and gloves are recommended as a matter of general safety precautions.

However, Doggett and Davis warn that quality control systems in manufacturing and storage are key to ensuring MgO board performance – and that some poorer quality boards used by early adopters in Europe and Australia caused problems which undermined confidence in an emerging product. “In all instances, reports implying MgO as inherently flawed involved demonstrably defective products applied without water-resistive barriers and in demanding coastal climates. Such failures were therefore predictable. But in their wake emerged a legacy of negative perception that continues to thwart the industry. Much of this criticism originated from stakeholders in product categories that MgO seeks to displace.”

The paper also points to potential environmental benefits, citing less energy intensive production than Portland cement, reliance on natural material with high potential for incorporating recycled content, and MgO’s biodegradable and recyclable nature. MgO boards have been available in Ireland since 2014, via pioneering supplier Greenspan. Founded in 1999, the Limerick-based company developed a history of introducing innovative building products to the Irish market – products designed to speed up the building process and provide affordable, cleaner, greener building solutions. Notable early successes include providing the external insulation system for Ireland’s first passive house, Tomás O’Leary’s Out of the Blue in 2004.

Greenspan has continued to add to its product range since then, and in 2014 the company introduced MgO boards from China. The success of these early imports led to the development of the Cem-Rock brand, which now comprises a family of boards for applications ranging from tile backer boards, to sheathing boards, and structural floor and roof boards.

Committed to quality manufacturing, in 2019 the company formed a partnership with Dubai-based MgO experts Aqua Boards Building Materials FZ-LLC to manufacture Cem-Rock to the partners’ specifications and ensure the highest quality standard is met on a consistent basis.

“Aqua Boards have extensive knowledge of the manufacturing process of MgO and have been instrumental in identifying and working with factories in China to work with on an OEM basis,” said Greenspan System Sales Ireland Ltd MD Mike Cregan. “Today’s Cem-Rock formulations have been developed by Aqua Boards.

Greenspan and Aqua Boards have negotiated exclusive agreements with the leading plant manufacturer in China, who hold patents on the equipment needed to manufacture MgO board to international standards, Cregan said. Greenspan now exclusively markets this manufacturing technology and the Cem-Rock formulation worldwide.

Numerous projects have been completed using Cem-Rock throughout Ireland, the UK and continental Europe. Greenspan has supplied over 1.5 million square metres of Cem-Rock boards in Ireland alone over the last 10 years.

Cem-Rock has gone through extensive testing by British and European technical assessment bodies. Cem-Rock has a BBA certificate, ETA certification and has recently gone through testing by international standards organization ASTM International. In addition, Cem-Rock has undertaken a series of rigorous fire testing and offers up to two-hour fire-rating on structural wall and floor assemblies. Cem-Rock also possess an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) and Green Guard Gold certification.

To read the white paper visit https://tinyurl.com/MgOwhitepaper, and for more information on Cem-Rock visit www.cemrock.ie