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Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

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Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#21

Post by zalo »

SCAQTony wrote: post #14
iancmceachern wrote: post #7

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar. Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

The bricks will aspirate toxic chemicals when exposed to direct sunlight: "...Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. ..." https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/everyday…

Mixing graphite into HDPE appears to make it immune to UV photo-degradation.

There’s even a company that capitalizes on this by making durable boat hulls with it: https://tidemanboats.com/

Not sure how it holds up in plasphalt, but it could be worth exploring graphite additives.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#22

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

moffkalast wrote: post #16
yarg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be probably be mitigated with some sort of coating. It would be more expensive, but it would still allow for the repurposing of waste plastic.

Ah I know, coat it in epoxy!

There must be some applications though. Perhaps in the initial foundation which is probably waterproofed and underground?

Or internal partitioning walls that get painted or plastered over?

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#23

Post by robbedpeter »

shadowtree wrote: post #10

This is a great way to get microplastic through abrasion into even more places within the foodchain. Wonder if it burns nicely too, plastic after all is "frozen gasoline" - here mixed with sand. /debbiedowner

This is where you might use a variation of that "healing cracks" bacteria in conjunction with the "eats plastic" bacteria. If you could get the plastic digesting bacteria to excrete rigid oxides, then most of the plastic would be replaced with an interlocking 3d mesh of concrete and rock-like bacteria waste.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09500...

It'd eliminate the plastic waste and leave much more environmentally friendly remains, and it'd be self healing.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#25

Post by monkeybutton »

SCAQTony wrote: post #14
iancmceachern wrote: post #7

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar. Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

The bricks will aspirate toxic chemicals when exposed to direct sunlight: "...Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. ..." https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/everyday…

How does one even begin to address concerns about toxicity with so many different chemicals? Go in order of concentration? Most to least likely to be biologically active based on models? Cluster them and evaluate the clusters?

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#26

Post by ProtoMathics »

shadowtree wrote: post #10

This is a great way to get microplastic through abrasion into even more places within the foodchain. Wonder if it burns nicely too, plastic after all is "frozen gasoline" - here mixed with sand. /debbiedowner

plastic can be infused with chemicals to not burn, but other than that youre right.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#27

Post by ProtoMathics »

bragr wrote: post #17

I bet sourcing all that sand will be a bigger problem than they expect as sand is a rare and nonrenewable resource that's heavily in demand for concrete and sourcing it has all sorts of environmental issues of its own. They should look into replacing that with something that's also cheap waste. Maybe crushed glass would work?

glass is made from sand, there is less glass in world then sand, and again, why lock more precious commodity in another product which we are already making from other less precious commodity ?

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#28

Post by ProtoMathics »

iancmceachern wrote: post #7

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar. Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

in "green" economy you have to MANUFACTURE carbohydrates and then produce plastic from that. no oil, should be default in current thinking.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#29

Post by ProtoMathics »

ProtoMathics wrote: post #28
iancmceachern wrote: post #7

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar. Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

in "green" economy you have to MANUFACTURE carbohydrates and then produce plastic from that. no oil, should be default in current thinking.

hydrocarbons XD

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#30

Post by Dylan16807 »

bragr wrote: post #17

I bet sourcing all that sand will be a bigger problem than they expect as sand is a rare and nonrenewable resource that's heavily in demand for concrete and sourcing it has all sorts of environmental issues of its own. They should look into replacing that with something that's also cheap waste. Maybe crushed glass would work?

Certain shapes of sand are rare compared to global construction, sand in general isn't. Unclear what this method needs.
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