Sustainable Engineers At Kenoteq Are Reinventing the Brick (cnn.com) 80
Engineers from Kenoteq are working to reinvent the humble clay-fired brick, which has remained largely the same for thousands of years and causes significant environmental problems. Not only are the majority of brick kilns required to produce bricks heated by fossil fuels, but the bricks that are made must be transported to construction sites, generating more carbon emissions. CNN reports: [Gabriela Medero, a professor of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University] joined forces with fellow engineer Sam Chapman and founded Kenoteq in 2009. The company's signature product is the K-Briq. Made from more than 90% construction waste, Medero says the K-Briq -- which does not need to be fired in a kiln -- produces less than a tenth of the carbon emissions of conventional bricks. With the company testing new machinery to start scaling up production, Medero hopes her bricks will help to build a more sustainable world.
To make it, construction and demolition waste including bricks, gravel, sand and plasterboard is crushed and mixed with water and a binder. The bricks are then pressed in customized molds. Tinted with recycled pigments, they can be made in any color. [...] Kenoteq currently operates one workshop in Edinburgh, which can produce three million K-Briqs a year. Medero is looking at scaling up -- but it's hard to create a revolution in construction. Over the next 18 months, Medero plans to get K-Briq machinery on-site at recycling plants. This will increase production while reducing transport-related emissions, she says, because trucks can collect K-Briqs when they drop off construction waste. "We need to have ways of building sustainably, with affordable, good quality materials that will last."
To make it, construction and demolition waste including bricks, gravel, sand and plasterboard is crushed and mixed with water and a binder. The bricks are then pressed in customized molds. Tinted with recycled pigments, they can be made in any color. [...] Kenoteq currently operates one workshop in Edinburgh, which can produce three million K-Briqs a year. Medero is looking at scaling up -- but it's hard to create a revolution in construction. Over the next 18 months, Medero plans to get K-Briq machinery on-site at recycling plants. This will increase production while reducing transport-related emissions, she says, because trucks can collect K-Briqs when they drop off construction waste. "We need to have ways of building sustainably, with affordable, good quality materials that will last."
Alternately (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they can start using 2 year old android devices.
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The bricks are then pressed in customized molds. Tinted with recycled pigments, they can be made in any color.
And then they get sued by a company in Billund, Denmark, for intellectual property infringement.
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As long as they aren't made by Samsung, don't want your walls exploding.
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Also, there is one key metric by which you can tell if the K-Briq actually makes sense to use from a resource perspective. However, that key metric is conspicuously absent from the article, while if it was in their favor, I'm sure they'd be touting it all over the place.
So I did a quick Google search. Lots of PR articles like this one, but still no mention of the most important metric. The metric which determines if it's a useful use of construction resources or not.
What's the price compared to the material
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What's the price compared to the materials it's replacing?
Another key metric that isn't mentioned is the strength.
One of the ingredients is waste plasterboard made from gypsum, a material not known for being strong.
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The new housing material should be the entire room. How to make larger prefabricated units that can be more readily assembled onsite to create a complete house. Sufficient strength and flexibility in joints to allow minimal footings. Fully insulated and double glazed for sound and temperature performance, with conduits pre-installed power and data and a special wet area room, all predone.
Manufacturer those rooms on a production line, corners and middles, squares and rectangles, will substantially reduce co
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Modular manufactured homes could dramatically reduce the cost of housing. Buckminster Fuller had the same idea two generations ago.
Unfortunately, social stigma and zoning laws keep it from happening.
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Modular manufactured homes could dramatically reduce the cost of housing. Buckminster Fuller had the same idea two generations ago.
Unfortunately, social stigma and zoning laws keep it from happening.
Around here, walls are prefabbed, faik much of shipped from the Baltic states due to lower costs. Windows and electrics are added on site. I know there's been tests with everything added prefab including wallpaper, but that didn't work out. I don't think I've ever seen an IRL bricklayer, it would probably be prohibitively expensive to build by individual bricks today.
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The new housing material should be the entire room.
You mean like the Organisation Todt [wikimedia.org] used to build? That's certainly structurally very adequate, but the materials costs may be a bit high for some home owners.
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Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Informative)
According to Medero, the K-Briq will be comparably priced to conventional bricks. Additionally, as a new product, the K-Briq has been subjected to rigorous assessment at the materials testing lab at Heriot-Watt University, and certified by BBA (British Board of Agrement). Medero claims that K-Briqs are stronger and more durable than fired clay bricks, and provide better insulation, too.
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Tippers are only used for mining waste, not construction. For those you often get skips or flatbed trucks carrying large waste bags.
You don't see any heavy tipper lorries in urban environments unless they're delivering large amounts of raw building material to large construction sites.
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You don't have dumpsters? That's how most construction waste is handled here (US). And the trucks that deliver/pick up the dumpsters aren't useful for anything else, as they don't have any bed.
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The binder matters, many binders (glues) that are fossil fuel based break down over time from exposure to sunlight. They use water and a binder here so perhaps it is actually cement based. But being that the point is to be environmentally friendly it is probably a water based glue. Having gypsum in the mix doesn't inspire confidence.
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This one time in Australia.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This one time in Australia.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'll bite. I'm curious. Why don't tariffs work?
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What were the arguments? I'm asking a serious question, and you basically repeated without elaborating.
Trump Re: This one time in Australia.... (Score:1)
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They have to be intelligently applied, including considering counter tariffs.
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Yeah, but the Australian carbon tax was brain-dead. It didn't apply to imports, the biggest polluters (including the aluminium smelters) were exempted, and it didn't apply to petrol/diesel used as transport fuel. It mostly resulted in poor people being unable to afford to heat their homes, and no positive changes in behaviour.
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"It mostly resulted in poor people being unable to afford to heat their homes"
Why would anyone in Australia need to heat their home?
Re:This one time in Australia.... (Score:5, Informative)
It may come as a surprise to you, but Australia actually has seasons. Melbourne winters can be pretty brutal, and Tasmanian winters are very cold. The south-east of Australia is exposed to Antarctic ocean currents, and sometimes a low-pressure system can dump Antarctic air there as well. Also, when you get inland it becomes more desert-like: hot in the day, freezing at night (no heat retention).
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Yeah, but the Australian carbon tax was brain-dead. It didn't apply to imports, the biggest polluters (including the aluminium smelters) were exempted...
The aluminium smelters received free credits to address the exact problem raised here, competition from overseas businesses. This is preferable to tarrifs, because of various trade agreements and WTO rules. Despite this, the aliminium smelter company Alcoa was the 13th highest payer of the carbon price. I believe this reflects the balance they tried to strike between incentivising behaviour and protecting industries from unfair import competition. I'm not convinced that they got the balance right, but makin
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The carbon price increased electricity costs by about 7%,
No it went up much more than 7% most figures over 60% prices never went back to pre-carbon tax as the electricity companies found the customers got used to the new prices and blamed other things for the price hike, the small fall was for show only https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media... [aph.gov.au]
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Building regulations need to change to encourage buildings to made out of things other than brick.
For example a wood or steel frame is common in many countries. Cladding on the outside, plasterboard (drywall) on the inside, and a choice of materials for insulation. Polystyrene blocks work well for insulation and can be made of recycled material. In fact lots of recycled materials can be used for insulation.
Bricks really are a rubbish way of building stuff. As well as being bad for the environment they make
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Bricks really are a rubbish way of building stuff.
The 3rd little pig strongly disagrees with you.
On a completely unrelated note- there's a big bad wolf asking if you could share your address with him.
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Nice story, not true.
Brickworks, Australia's largest brick manufacturer saw a 37% jump in earnings in their brick and tile division over the period of the emissions trading scheme.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2014... [crikey.com.au]
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I don't know what you're trying to call out here, sectokia never claimed the company was worse off, just that they adjusted to the new policies (to their benefit in the end according to your link) and the environment suffered for it.
For the Earth religion (Score:1)
New brick has purity and does not offend religious taboos of the Earth religion. If you aren't a pious true believer and devotee of the Earth religion, you can use old brick.
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No, I know of a better (real) example. In one chapter of a TV series (I don't recall if it was "Love It or List It" or one of the "The Scott Brothers" shows, anyway) there was a couple who wanted a new home and they said, literally that:
>> They didn't want marble tops because mining hurt the environment. BUT what they wanted was a house built COMPLETELY of wood.
I couldn't believe what I heard, such incompetence! But, hey, they were OK with buying a fridge (which has metal parts extracted from the eart
Recycled bricks? (Score:2)
So they are basically recycling old bricks and selling it for the same price as new ones? That isn't sustainably cheaper if we going to be building new structures, is it?
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So they are basically recycling old bricks and selling it for the same price as new ones?
I just spent the last 10 minutes searching to find out how they build these bricks, or what they make them out of. I could find nothing, other than they are mostly recycled. That doesn't tell you much.
Re:Recycled bricks? (Score:5, Informative)
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You had to spend 10 minutes searching for something that's in the summary?
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Not everything has to solve the entire problem, but we can solve a piece of it at a time then eventually it will be solved. This may be a step in the right direction.
controlling inputs (Score:3)
I'm sure that there must be more to it than just "construction waste" but these and similar products seem to want to project the idea that they can take practically anything and make a brick out of it. When in fact the inputs will probably need to be controlled well to produce a reliable product that is strong enough, stable and long lasting.
Also the magic word "binder" is used, what cost is that in monetary and environmental terms ? I doubt we're talking about throwing in an egg to the mix.
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Longevity? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to know how long these will last in UK and especially Scottish Weather. There are many buildings standing with nearly 200 year old bricks and beyond [brick making on an industrial scale didn't take off until the Railways arrived and could move them] which will last for hundreds of more years. The construction business is full of "technologies" that didn't last or turned out to be a bad idea - concrete slab construction of high-rises has proved to be a particular nightmare with many built in the 60s/70s having been flattened due to terrible problems with water damage etc.
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Far more important than the quality of the brick is the quality of the roof. There are adobe buildings in Cusco, Peru, that are 450 years old. A roofless adobe building can melt into a pile of mud in a decade, but if protected from weather they'll resist even a major earthquake about every 20 years. Adobe is about as ecologically neutral as a building material can get, just clay, gravel water and a binder, and a fairly good insulator at that.
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What do you mean? Illustrator or Photoshop?
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Far more important than the quality of the brick is the quality of the roof. There are adobe buildings in Cusco, Peru, that are 450 years old. A roofless adobe building can melt into a pile of mud in a decade, but if protected from weather they'll resist even a major earthquake about every 20 years. Adobe is about as ecologically neutral as a building material can get, just clay, gravel water and a binder, and a fairly good insulator at that.
So gone in a Flash if not protected, but able to withstand a significant Shockwave?
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I'd like to know how long these will last
Oh, you and your durability. Didn't you know? There's bricks here to be sold, and this just means in perpetuity.
Economic, environmental, effective. Pick only some.
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he construction business is full of "technologies" that didn't last or turned out to be a bad idea - concrete slab construction of high-rises has proved to be a particular nightmare with many built in the 60s/70s having been flattened due to terrible problems with water damage etc.
Looks like a source for the recycled brick and don't worry with the current crop of developers building towers that crumble there will be plenty of material for this process https://www.news.com.au/nation... [news.com.au]
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I'd like to know how long these will last in UK and especially Scottish Weather.
Well, did you buy the annual license, or a perpetual license?
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I would expect new buildings in Scotland to use a double wall of bricks with an insulating cavity, so even if they're not resistant enough for the outer wall they should serve for the inner wall.
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Bricks aren't that great either, there are plenty of things that can go wrong with them. Not just the bricks either, you need mortar to keep them in place and that can fail too.
In some countries buildings don't usually last more than 50 years before they get replaced anyway. When your house is EOL you sell it to a developer and buy a new one. It's not as bad as you might think from an environmental point of view as the houses are largely factory fabricated and not make of brick, and newer houses are more en
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Love the IDEA, but is it cost-effective? (Score:1)
Honestly, I love the idea. Take the broken bricks, concrete chinks, etc, that is actual WASTE, crush and recycle it as raw material for new bricks, keeping it out of the landfills.
Sounds like a no-brainer!
But ..... the item only goes from "good idea" to "good product" if it actually works as well or better than the original, and it costs the same or less than the original.
If you can't match that, it's useless on the commercial market.
For me, I'd LOVE to see more products like this made from waste. It's go
Daily Pedant Here... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Sustainable Engineers" means, "Engineers who are sustainable".
Yes, yes, I'll see myself out.
Basically they're a concrete-like brick. (Score:3)
This has been done before.
They generally don't have the life expectancy of well-cared for brick.
Lucky (Score:2)
It's lucky these bricks don't have to be transported from the factory to construction sites. That really cuts down on carbon emissions.
So they re-inventes the concrete brick? (Score:2)
Looking at certain builders, there's at least as much crap in their concrete, as is in those blocks. ;)
(And those are probably the buildings that collapse early.
Reinventing Masonry (Score:1)
Why aren't brick houses built by huge 3D-printers, which can work day and night laying out brick by brick like in the olden days?
Not just binders. . . . (Score:2)
. . . the resource cost of gathering the old bricks and other construction waste, transporting it to the reclamation site, and the energy cost of crushing it all doesn't seem to be mentioned, yet they claim sustainability. Would need to see details on that: it's likely **NOT** trivial. . .
OTOH, if they also produce an onsite waste-crusher that powders the waste on-site. . .that might go somewhere. . .
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. . . the resource cost of gathering the old bricks and other construction waste, transporting it to the reclamation site, and the energy cost of crushing it all doesn't seem to be mentioned, yet they claim sustainability. Would need to see details on that: it's likely **NOT** trivial. . .
OTOH, if they also produce an onsite waste-crusher that powders the waste on-site. . .that might go somewhere. . .
If the entire process could be done on site. Then the bricks transported to the new location.. That would be exceptional!
Bricks are not the problem (Score:2)
How long will it last? (Score:2)
That's the real question. Will it last more than, say, 10 years, in rain, snow, 90% humidity? How about earthquakes? The weight of snow on the roof?
Outlasting Roman Bricks? (Score:2)
When these newfangled things are guaranteed to outlast those Roman bricks I so marvel at in Rome and elsewhere, let me know.
Until then, fageddaboudit.
Missing data (Score:2)
The lack of information about binders, source materials, and mechanical properties makes TFS and TFA useless.
The company's website is similarly useless.