1 Senior Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS2 9JT, UK, j.p.forth@leeds.ac.uk
2 Technology and Product Development Manager, Encos Ltd, Leeds Innovation Centre, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS2 9DF, UK, stuart.shaw@encosltd.com
ABSTRACT
Vegetable oils are increasing becoming a sustainable source of raw materials for the production of biopolymers. These same oils have been used extensively in paints and varnishes for hundreds of years to provide coatings. Oxidation of vegetable oils is a reaction which is well understood and it is this reaction which allows drying oils to harden when exposed to air. The heating of thin layers of oil in combination with oxygen causes the formation of polymers, which continue to increase in polymer chain length with increased exposure to heat and oxygen. This same reaction can be used to produce masonry products such as blocks, bricks and brick slips from a combination of recovered or recycled aggregates and a wide variety of vegetable oils from different sources. The addition of colouring and texturing allows facsimiles of traditional clay bricks to be manufactured. The carbon footprint for bricks and brick slips can be significantly reduced by the use of vegetable oil binders. This paper outlines the testing carried out on a brick manufactured from recycled lightweight aggregate and vegetable oil.
KEYWORDS: vegetable oil, polymerization, bricks, recycled, furnace bottom ash, pulverised fuel ash
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