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Have building-size legos finally arrived?
The Institute for Civil Engineering and Environment (INCEEN) at the University of Luxembourg have signed a "memorandum of understanding" with the Suisse Federal Laboratories of Materials Science and Technology (Empa) of the domain of ETH Zürich to collaborate on research on energy efficiency in the construction sector.
As the building sector is generating a large amount of CO2 emissions, resource consumption and waste production, new eco-construction approaches are needed. Therefore, the first collaboration project entitled "Eco-Construction for Sustainable Development" (ECON4SD) will focus on the development of novel components and design models for resource and energy efficient buildings based on the construction materials concrete, steel and timber.
ECON4SD will bring together researchers from different civil engineering fields and architecture at the University of Luxembourg and the Empa Zürich, as well as from universities abroad in cooperation with partners from industry and consultancies in Luxembourg. One vision of the project is to develop building components that can be re-used after a building has reached the end of its life cycle and is disassembled. "The ECON4SD aims to turn buildings into materials and components banks and will allow producers of structural elements to come to a different business model. That would consist in loaning materials or components to customers and take them back after use in a particular building, in order to resell them directly, recondition or recycle them," commented professor Danièle Waldmann of the University of Luxembourg. "Thereby, the project paves the way for a future CE material or component passport comparable to the already existing energy passport."
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Friday November 03 2017, @06:36PM (4 children)
Buildings are surprisingly single use, particularly the wood framed buildings in North America. OSB, timbers, drywall, roofing all get sent to the landfill during demo. And the lifespan of these structures are measured in decades, so these materials will need to be disposed of in the near future.
Most other industries require cradle to grave tracking of their materials, and account for the proper disposal. This motivates recycling and recyclable materials as selling the scraps is desirable over paying for landfill. I'm skeptical that this could be used effectively in construction without huge spikes in price, but perhaps the steel and concrete of commercial buildings would be used in more applications.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @06:47PM (2 children)
I'm fairly sure that concrete from commercial buildings is *already* recycled when those buildings are demolished. It can be broken up and used as aggregate for fresh concrete, perhaps in roadways or other applications not quite as high-performance as skyscrapers. Steel is readily recycled in all industries.
As for the stuff in your first paragraph, the problem is how cheap and shoddy American residential housing is.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Friday November 03 2017, @07:24PM (1 child)
You may be fairly sure, but in 90% of the cases, you are just wrong.
The "aggregate" you imagine being salvaged for new concrete is full of re-rod, inconsistent sizes of unknown materials, with un-knowable engineering strengths.
You can't put it through a modern concrete batch plant, because you don't trust the rock, and the cement content will fuckup your mix.
At best this stuff ends up being used for is Fill. (Building "pads" upon which new buildings are build.
Example: Rubble with a cause [bizjournals.com].
Asphalt fares somewhat better, but even in that case, the unknown history and content of stripped asphalt prevents a reliable product.
Highway departments of some State governments can occasionally recycle asphalt because they were the ones that issued the contract for the donor road, and knew the specifications of what went into it.
Both Asphalt and Concrete are highly engineered products these day. The formula for Concrete Mix varies not just by the intended use, but also the weather that day, the, the haul time, the re-rod density planned, and of course the overall climate area.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @09:18PM
At best this stuff ends up being used for is Fill. (Building "pads" upon which new buildings are build.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I wasn't claiming that old concrete was broken up and used for new, high-quality concrete. But being used for fill is a form of recycling, and a good one at that: not all applications require high performance; a cheap, lower-performance recycled material may be a good alternative.
Similarly, when drink bottles are recycled, they aren't used to make new food-grade plastics. Instead, they're used to make lower-grade plastics for things like picnic tables and park benches and boardwalks. That plastic lumber is great stuff, compared to real wood (it doesn't dry-rot and split after a few years in the elements), but needs a lot of material, but it doesn't need to be ultra-pure high-quality stuff.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 03 2017, @07:01PM
Like what other industries?
Seriously, that does not happen. It just doesn't.
Cars? sold as scrap eventually, because its cheaper than mining new metals, Glass and plastic parts? - Mostly sent to the land fill. No tracking. No assurances of proper recycle.
Factories torn down multi-story buildings? Steel recycled, most of the cement busted up hauled away, but NOT mixed into new buildings.
Look, it just doesn't happen the way you imagine. The metals have value.
Realistically those are the only parts of any obsolete structure that are reliably recycled. But only because its cheap and and easy to melt down.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.