New Cement Mortar with Recycled Plastic Promises to Reduce Waste and Improve Insulation in Construction

Written by Romário Pereira de Carvalho

Published on 24/02/2025 at 06:32

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New Sustainable Mortar Uses Recycled Plastic, Offering Better Insulation and Contributing to Waste Reduction in Civil Construction

Researchers from Newcastle University have developed a new cement mortar that promises to stand out in civil construction. Made from recycled plastic and silica aerogel, the material provides better thermal insulation and helps reduce plastic waste.

The innovation, published in the journal Construction and Building Materials, could lower heating and cooling bills, offering an environmentally friendly solution.

Innovative Mortar Combines Lightness and Thermal Insulation

The new mixture was developed to replace conventional sand with silica aerogel and recycled PET plastic. The result is a lighter mortar that performs better in thermal insulation.

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Reduction of Plastic Waste and Energy Efficiency

Professor Lidija Šiller, a nanoscale science expert at the School of Engineering at Newcastle University and co-author of the study, highlighted the potential of the new formula.

“This study demonstrates that our formulation of recycled PET plastic waste can be used to produce cement-based mortars, and it is an effective way to reduce their impact on the environment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to lower heating bills in all our new buildings while significantly reducing plastic waste in the world?,” she stated.

Seven Formulations Tested and Promising Results

The researchers tested seven different formulations of the new mortar, along with the traditional one. The most effective was composed of 7% untreated silica aerogel mixed with natural sand and 3% recycled PET plastic.

The PET particles, sourced from crushed plastic bottles, had irregular shapes and thicknesses between 2.5 mm and 3.5 mm. After the crushing process, they were washed with water and dried at room temperature for 24 hours.

The tests evaluated essential properties, including setting time, flowability, density, strength, and thermal conductivity. The new formulation reduces the thermal conductivity of the mortar by up to 55% compared to standard samples.

Future Challenges and Large-Scale Testing

Researcher Kaniaw Marof, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, emphasized the importance of the discovery. Improving the thermal performance of masonry buildings by reducing the energy needed for heating and cooling to ensure user comfort is a key topic in modern construction.

In his work, the modification of the surface of silica aerogel particles was a crucial step in successfully incorporating silica aerogel particles into the cement binder and PET plastic.

Now, the team aims to test the mortar in a real-world environment and at scale. According to Professor Šiller, the goal is to find construction industry partners to build a house using the new mixture.

With information from Tech Xplore

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New Cement Mortar with Recycled Plastic Promises to Reduce Waste and Improve Insulation in Construction

New Sustainable Mortar Uses Recycled Plastic, Offering Better Insulation and Contributing to Waste Reduction in Civil Construction

Innovative Mortar Combines Lightness and Thermal Insulation

Reduction of Plastic Waste and Energy Efficiency

Seven Formulations Tested and Promising Results

Future Challenges and Large-Scale Testing

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New Cement Mortar with Recycled Plastic Promises to Reduce Waste and Improve Insulation in Construction

New Sustainable Mortar Uses Recycled Plastic, Offering Better Insulation and Contributing to Waste Reduction in Civil Construction

Innovative Mortar Combines Lightness and Thermal Insulation

Reduction of Plastic Waste and Energy Efficiency

Seven Formulations Tested and Promising Results

Future Challenges and Large-Scale Testing

A giant printer called the “Ferrari” of concrete has landed in Latin America and can already build a 120-square-meter house in just 48 hours, making the traditional construction site look like something from the last century.

Brazil will harvest a record crop of up to 357 million tons of grains, but it does not have the capacity to store a large part of it. The storage deficit has reached the highest level in history and is equivalent to almost the entire production of Argentina.

Four times faster than the Concorde, capable of taking passengers from New York to London in less than an hour at Mach 5.5, and with an engine that switches from turbojet to ramjet mid-flight at Mach 3.5, the Hermeus Quarterhorse went from paper to its first flight in just 19 months.

She started by collecting oyster shells from restaurants and today she has already accumulated more than 10 tons to restore reefs, recover coastal habitats, and demonstrate how a common waste can become a tool for ocean conservation.

SpaceX will dock a $843 million vehicle to the International Space Station to push a nearly 420-ton laboratory against the atmosphere and make the debris fall in a controlled manner into the ocean.

China opens the world’s first school where more than 100 humanoid robots from different brands will study together, each movement will be repeated up to 600 times a day and the data will feed a collective brain that will teach all the robots of the future.

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Panama bets on a $4.5 billion railway bridge over the Panama Canal and calls on Renfe to validate a 450 km high-speed line that promises 50,000 jobs, but still faces the technical challenge of crossing one of the world’s most strategic routes.

“It doesn’t look like India”: British architect praises urban planning, cleanliness, and safety of this planned city in a country with 1,476,625,576 inhabitants

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