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Making Buildings, Cars and Planes From Materials Based on Plant Fibres (economist.com)
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.
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.
like we were fucking Navi'is. Die and go to hell!
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.
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...
No golfing, I'm afraid.
Prison time will be good for him.
There is no way to separate these composites into recyclable materials. They will be full of additives to prevent rot. They are not environmentally friendly just because they're in part made from plants.
They don't make Federal Prison out of plant based materials.
Just like micro idiot is doing with office 365. Yes they have been re writting office 365 in javascript. see where there is no discussion allowed below. yes we are being censored because this site is owned by micro idiot.
time to patent making bricks with straw
Nullius in verba
... 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.
Have gnu, will travel.
Heavy stuff.
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.
The best plant fiber is known for millennia and is called wood. You can build anything from wood fibre arranged like plywood, up to transatlantic bombers.
cotton/wool?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Plant fibers add strength to building materials. This is news? This is fucking news? Birds have known about this for millions of years.
what they call "nanoplatelets"
Each platelet is only a few millionths of a metre across.
So, you know, micro, not nano by three orders of magnitude.
...to tonewoods? Like the mahogany in a Gibson Les Paul, that is endangered? Could this provide an alternate to this wood which is often importing illegally.
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.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Fiber reinforced composite materials using nitrocellulose have been used for decades.
we have been doing this for a very long time already, thanks...