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Science Technology

Making Buildings, Cars and Planes From Materials Based on Plant Fibres (economist.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Materials-science researchers are finding that plant fibres can add durability and strength to substances already used in the construction of buildings and in goods that range from toys and furniture to cars and aircraft. From a report: A big bonus is that, because plants lock up carbon in their structure, using their fibres to make things should mean less carbon dioxide is emitted. The production of concrete alone represents some 5% of man-made global CO{-2} emissions, and making 1kg of plastic from oil produces 6kg of the greenhouse gas. Start with the carrots. These are being investigated by Mohamed Saafi at Lancaster University, in England. Dr Saafi and his colleagues do not use whole carrots, but rather what they call "nanoplatelets" that have been extracted from carrots discarded by supermarkets or as waste from food-processing factories. Sugar-beet peelings are also a useful source of nanoplatelets.

The researchers are working with CelluComp, a British firm that produces such platelets for industrial applications, including as an additive that helps toughen the surface of paint as it dries. Each platelet is only a few millionths of a metre across. It consists of a sheet of stiff cellulose fibres. Although the fibres are minute, they are strong. By combining platelets with other materials a powerful composite can be produced. Dr Saafi is mixing the platelets into cement, which is made by burning limestone and clay together at high temperature. To turn cement into concrete it is mixed with aggregates such as sand, stones and crushed rocks, which act as reinforcement, and with water, which reacts with the chemicals in the cement to form a substance called calcium silicate hydrate. This starts off as a thick gel, but then hardens into a solid matrix that binds the aggregates together.
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Making Buildings, Cars and Planes From Materials Based on Plant Fibres More

Making Buildings, Cars and Planes From Materials Based on Plant Fibres

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  • Yeah, Good, wooden huts, (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    like we were fucking Navi'is. Die and go to hell!

  • Soy-insulated cabling... (Score:4, Informative)

    by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot.worf@net> on Friday June 15, 2018 @06:51PM (#56792300)

    Hrm, I don't know about you, but aren't we already having problems with little critters loving to eat the soy-insulating cabling modern cars use? They love the stuff and eat it up, causing short circuits galore.

    Now people are suggesting continuing the practice and using it in buildings and cars? Seems like a potential case of being eaten (literally!) out of house and home.

    And I know there's a joke about parking "in the wrong neighbourhood" and finding your car stripped, but now it seems it will literally start to happen. Park in the wrong spot, and you'll have fed all the little critters in the neighbourhood with your now swiss-cheese like car.

    • As I understand it - the soy insulation was primarily made from tasty soy, thus easily palatable. From the article it sounds like they're taking the celullose alone and mixing it into things like paint or concrete. I think eating concrete is a bit beyond rodents capabilities at least.

    • Nobody even has to chew on the wiring. That plastic is garbage and it deteriorates severely with age and heat cycles. It's a serious problem for the first vehicles made with it, now.

  • If the US went back to sane laws... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    And stopped making lye difficult to purchase in any quantity, we could replace cement/concrete with geopolymer recipes such as:Anemone55's[1] geopolymer recipe using lye, type-f flyash (a waste product from coal fired powerplants), waterglass, and aggregate/sand. One of the benefits of the formula being that it uses existing materials that are byproducts of other industrial production without requiring as large of amounts of energy to break the limestone back down.

    1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Float... [reddit.com]

    • lye difficult to purchase in any quantity

      When I was dicking around with biodiesel I bought a big sack of lye for approximately nothing. The part I've still got is in a five gallon bucket. I bought corrosive stickers for it because I am a nerd.

  • patent it (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Friday June 15, 2018 @08:03PM (#56792514)
    time to patent making bricks with straw

  • ... transistors!!

  • but rather what they call "nanoplatelets" that have been extracted from carrots discarded by supermarkets

    Between this and the smaller bathrooms I feel like the airlines are going a bit too far.

  • Make everything out of hemp. You stoners need to get a life.

    • Hemp and Marijuana are not the same thing. And yes, hemp fiber is very useful in a lot of applications. But i guess reefer madness is a better approach, eh?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Hemp and Marijuana are not the same thing.

        Industrial hemp crops are great cover for growing some of the more psychoactive varieties in between the rows.

        • No they aren't. Not in any way. They compete for the same nutrients, they look completely different except for general leaf shape, and hemp isn't sex-segregated.

        • Industrial hemp crops are great cover for growing some of the more psychoactive varieties in between the rows.

          Real estate is a great way to launder money too.

          Then again the hops in beer are part of the Cannabaceae family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] So let's just make everything illegal while we're at it, amirite?

          You need to study up on some history to see why hemp was made illegal in the first place.

  • If one looks at history, several decades ago Henry Ford experimented with making automobile fenders with a plastic-like substance based on soybeans.

  • Robur the Conqueror (a character in the eponymous book by Jules Verne) built his heavier than air flying machine out of straw paper, IIRC.

  • Plant fibers add strength to building materials. This is news? This is fucking news? Birds have known about this for millions of years.

  • We are running out of sand usable for concrete rapidly. Already there are illegal sand cartels and people have been killed over it. Uncounted numbers of people die or are permanently injured collecting it in India.

    Before you ask or comment... sand in desert can't be used. It's round. The sound required for concrete is angular and sharp so it locks together.

  • Fiber reinforced composite materials using nitrocellulose have been used for decades.

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