Building bricks from plastic waste
The company’s main focus is to convert plastic rubbish into a range of sustainable building materials.
Revolutionary ‘green’ types of bricks and construction materials could be made from recycled PVC, waste plant fibers or sand with the help of a remarkable new kind of rubber polymer discovered by Australian scientists.
The rubber polymer, itself made from sulfur and canola oil, can be compressed and heated with fillers to create construction materials of the future, says a new paper unveiling a promising new technique just published in Chemistry—A European Journal.
“This method could produce materials that may one day replace non-recyclable construction materials, bricks and even concrete replacement,” says organic chemistry researcher Flinders University Associate Professor Justin Chalker.
The powdered rubber can potentially be used as tubing, rubber coatings or bumpers, or compressed, heated then mixed with other fillers to form entirely new composites, including more sustainable building blocks, concrete replacement or insulation.
Cement is a finite resource and heavily polluting in its production, with concrete production estimated to contribute more than 8% of global greenhouse gases emissions, and the construction industry worldwide accounting for about 18%.
“This new recycling method and new composites are an important step forward in making sustainable construction materials, and the rubber material can be repeatedly ground up and recycled,” says lead author Flinders Ph.D. Nic Lundquist. “The rubber particles also can be first used to purify water and then repurposed into a rubber mat or tubing.”
“This is also important because there are currently few methods to recycle PVC or carbon fiber,” he says, with collaborators from Flinders, Deakin University and University of WA.
Co-author and research collaborator Dr. Louisa Esdaile says the important research looks at ways to repurpose and recycle materials, so that these materials are multi-use by design.
“Such technology is important in a circular economy,” says Dr. Esdaile, a special contributor to this month’s Young Chemist issue of Chemistry—A European Journal (ChemEurJ).
The new manufacturing and recycling technique, called reactive compression molding, applies to rubber material that can be compressed and stretched, but one that doesn’t melt. The unique chemical structure of the sulfur backbone in the novel rubber allows for multiple pieces of the rubber to bond together.
SoftBank agreed on Tuesday to pay more than 10,000 million dollars to acquire WeWork, doubling its investment and paying close Read more
Microsoft has struck the table when it won the JEDI contract (acronym for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) tendered by the Read more
Siemens Gamesa has received a conditional order to supply 140 wind turbines of its most powerful model (11 MW) to Read more
A few years ago Boeing was the most important aeronautical company on the planet. being the most important civil constructor Read more
Tesla will begin delivering the first orders of the Model Y, its new SUV compact SUV, in the first quarter Read more
General Motors has announced that it will invest 1,500 million dollars (1,350 million euros) in the new generation of ‘pick-ups’ Read more
Netflix already has 158.3 million subscribers worldwide, demonstrating its strength in the face of increasing competition. However, its biggest advantage Read more
The aircraft manufacturer Boeing (NYSE: BA) suspends the production of its 737 MAX aircraft, after not obtaining this year, as Read more
Navin Shenoy, the vice president of Intel, said in a statement that “this acquisition advances our artificial intelligence strategy, which Read more
The Starliner spacecraft, from the Boeing company, landed successfully this Sunday in New Mexico after it failed on Friday in Read more