Scientists Create Cement Entirely Out of Waste Material:
[Scientists] have discovered a method to produce biocement from waste, making the alternative to traditional cement greener and more sustainable. Biocement is a kind of renewable cement that uses bacteria to create a hardening reaction that binds soil into a solid block. The NTU scientists have now created biocement from two common waste materials: industrial carbide sludge and urea (from mammalian urine).
They devised a method for forming a hard solid, or precipitate, from the interaction of urea with calcium ions in industrial carbide sludge. When this reaction occurs in soil, the precipitate binds soil particles together and fills gaps between them, resulting in a compact mass of soil. This produces a biocement block that is strong, durable, and less permeable. [...] It can also be used as biogrout to seal cracks in rock for seepage control and even to touch up and repair monuments like rock carvings and statues.
[...] Firstly, the team treats carbide sludge with an acid to produce soluble calcium. Urea is then added to the soluble calcium to form a cementation solution. The team then adds a bacterial culture to this cementation solution. The bacteria from the culture then break down the urea in the solution to form carbonate ions.
These ions react with the soluble calcium ions in a process called microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP). This reaction forms calcium carbonate â a hard, solid material that is naturally found in chalk, limestone, and marble.
[...] The soil reinforced with biocement has an unconfined compression strength of up to 1.7 megapascals (MPa), which is higher than that of the same soil treated using an equivalent amount of cement.
This makes the team's biocement suitable for use in soil improvement projects such as strengthening the ground or reducing water seepage for use in construction or excavation or controlling beach erosion along coastlines.
[...] The research team says that if biocement production could be scaled to the levels of traditional cement-making, the overall cost of its production compared to that of conventional cement would be lower, which would make biocement both greener and cheaper alternative to cement.
Journal Reference: "Utilization of carbide sludge and urine for sustainable biocement production" by Yang Yang, Jian Chu, Liang Cheng, Hanlong Liu, 22 February 2022, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2022.107443)
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Monday June 13 2022, @09:11AM
Starbucks scones.
compiling...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @11:50AM (7 children)
Tungsten carbide sludge, is also known as swarf, is a byproduct from the grinding, cutting, shaping, and forming of the manufacturing of tungsten carbide tooling, inserts and wear parts and other carbide items.
Now that we have some info the summary was missing, we see that the headline is stretching the implied "waste material" description.
Tungsten carbide sludge is not waste like we are led to believe, it is very valuable and as a result highly recycled.
When you can make this cement from the shit that exits my anus, then you can wake me up with a more surprising headling.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @12:29PM
I'm a noob on this, but are you sure that swarf (tungsten carbide sludge) is the only source this process would be using?
This article talks about recycling of carbide sludge from a different source and composition.. waste from production of acetylene
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12549665/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Monday June 13 2022, @02:29PM (5 children)
It seems your understandingI of what it is (swarf [wikipedia.org], which can be the result of working on metal, wood, plastic using tools etc) is NOT the same as the sludge being described [wikipedia.org] in this report.
And if you had understood that, then you might have realised that it may not be a waste product for you, but in Singapore it IS a waste product. It might cost them more to ship it to where you might recycle it than you might be willing to pay for it. They had no further economic use for it. You might have to look outside your own country to understand that your view is not necessarily that of everyone else in the world.
If you are going to complain that the summary didn't cover all the details (which it did), then perhaps when you read the report yourself you ought to make sure that you understand it. Both of the statements that you made are incorrect.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by captain normal on Monday June 13 2022, @04:02PM (4 children)
What I don't understand is; how can such a false post as this be modded so heavily +5 Insightful that a Troll mod does not knock it down even a little bit. Are there really so many registered Soylents that blindly believe false statements that they pile on mod points to such an angry post? I like to think that we are above the likes of FB, Twits, and reddit cess pools because we are mainly Technicians, Engineers and Scientists.
End of rant!
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday June 13 2022, @05:10PM (1 child)
Well, *I* don't know what swarf is. I'd guess a large number of people don't. And the post sounded convincing and informed. That probably how it got highly modded.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday June 13 2022, @05:40PM
In fairness, you don't need to know what swarf is - that was something erroneous and misleading claim made by the AC in " rel="url2html-2909">https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=49795&page=1&cid=1252924.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday June 13 2022, @05:35PM
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday June 14 2022, @03:32PM
First off, metal chippings from a manufacturing process definitely are waste. They may be easily recycled but it is still waste.
Actually, looking at the paper it's slightly confusing what they're referring to because of how they how they format "carbide sludge" or "carbide" and "sludge" because there is no comma and they link them separately.
But. from my own domain knowledge I would read that as "carbide sludge" AKA sludge with carbides in it, because just "sludge" doesn't really mean anything by itself.
Ok you have some sludge....great.....we don't do jack shit with it until you tell us what's in it!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 13 2022, @01:26PM
⠀
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 13 2022, @01:50PM
When I did my first contracting in the 1990s, concrete cost ~30/yard. Cost kept increasing throughout the 90s, into the 2000s. The last concrete I bought was $57/yard. Checking local prices today, you can expect to pay ~$125/yard, in my area. I don't even want to look at prices in New York, LA, or Chicago.
We need a concrete replacement that runs in the neighborhood of $20 to $30 per yard. Even cheaper would be better!
Am I the only one who might take on a couple projects, if they could get concrete at 1990s prices?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday June 13 2022, @02:01PM (2 children)
Using urea for top quality concrete mixtures was common technology in ancient Rome. Because of scarcity, they even had established tax office for collecting urine from citizens and public urinals.
I suppose this trick was known to many ancient civilizations, but as I know, so far only Rome had this documented in its history.
The edge of ċ¤Şç cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday June 13 2022, @04:06PM (1 child)
Well Roman concrete was/is known for it's durability.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2022, @05:29PM
If you add sildenafil citrate it hardens faster.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 14 2022, @08:16PM
Statutes; should be statues