I-Corps: Process for upcycling plastic waste into a building material

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to provide an alternative to carbon-intensive construction materials by upcycling waste plastics into building products. The growing options of building products composed of concrete and high-performing additives points to a demand for lightweight, cast finish materials that can reduce the amount of support structure needed.

Given the widespread availability of waste plastics, there is great potential for translating this waste into a resource for architectural product that address this demand while meeting the customer's budget and design goals. This composite material offers designers and builders seeking sustainable materials lighter weight, finished materials that reduce cost of back-up structure.

The product also offers a higher percentage of recycled content than available composite products and a lower environmental impact. The products' appearance are customizable in terms of varying color, texture, and patterning. Design-forward and sustainability-driven architects and builders may reach their sustainability goals and project those values through recycled materials adapted to their distinct design vision.

This I-Corps project will build upon a lineage of investigations into monolithic thermocasting of waste thermoplastic polymers with aggregates to upcycle common plastic waste into a rock-like material for architectural applications. Recycling waste polymers typically involves extensive sorting, processing, and size-reduction, resulting in homogenized products in which the recycled content is imperceptible.

The method of combining and thermocasting polymers with aggregates allows for a more heterogeneous range of input sizes and polymer types to produce a stone-like composite material. The process is relatively low-energy compared to that of similarly scaled cast building components that require high pressures and/or high temperatures and long periods of cooling in the molds.

A highly calibrated range of stone-like textures and surface patterns can be generated by modulating process parameters. Further analysis of waste polymer blends and waste aggregates is needed to align product specifications with regulatory criteria for non-structural building materials such as strength, UV resistance, and flame resistance.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.