Roofing Tiles from Low-Grade Plastic Streams: Product Design for Scalable Manufacturing

由低级塑料流制成的屋顶瓦：可扩展制造的产品设计

• 批准号: 10046411
• 金额: $ 6.37万
• 依托单位: CIRCULAR11 LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Grant for R&D
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10046411
• 关键词: Roofing; Tiles; Low; Grade; Plastic

Circular11 is developing a roofing system out of a composite material that we synthesise from a mix of low-grade plastics that currently lack end-markets, and are therefore not recycled. This project is focussed on re-designing the mould in order to adapt the current prototype to a scalable manufacturing process.We have already performed strength, thermal, and fire-testing on the material, and produce and sell products made out of it in the UK. It performs well enough to meet the increasing demand for building products with high recycled content, and we have received commercial intent from organisations like the Eden Project to supply their new-builds and retrofits with the tile.However, prototype tiles are currently made using a simple narrow mould that would create backpressure issues if fitted to an industrial machine. More complex moulds require more precise datasets on the rheological behaviour of our material, so we will design a high-volume production mould that is specially adapted to our material.This project is innovative because it is adapting industrial polymer production processes to create a high-value product out of waste streams that nobody else can use. Other companies have already demonstrated that there is market demand for roofing tiles made out of recycled plastic. However, these are currently made out of the same commercial-grade recyclate streams that other manufacturing sectors want, meaning that the price is driven up whilst the total volume of recycling in the system remains low. We are producing a product with similar performance, but which clearly drives additionality within the recycling sector itself.

Circular11正在开发一种复合材料屋顶系统，这种复合材料是由目前缺乏终端市场的低级塑料混合而成，因此不能回收。该项目的重点是重新设计模具，以使当前的原型适应可扩展的制造工艺。我们已经对材料进行了强度，热和防火测试，并在英国生产和销售由其制成的产品。它的性能足以满足对高回收含量的建筑产品日益增长的需求，我们已经收到了像伊甸园项目这样的组织的商业意向，为他们的新建筑和改造提供瓷砖。然而，原型瓷砖目前使用简单的狭窄模具制造，如果安装到工业机器上，会产生背压问题。更复杂的模具需要有关材料流变行为的更精确的数据集，因此我们将设计专门适应我们材料的大批量生产模具。该项目具有创新性，因为它正在调整工业聚合物生产工艺，以创造出高价值的产品从其他人无法使用的废物流中。其他公司已经证明，回收塑料制成的屋顶瓦有市场需求。然而，这些目前是由其他制造业想要的相同的商业级回收物流制成的，这意味着价格被推高，而系统中的回收总量仍然很低。我们正在生产一种具有类似性能的产品，但这显然推动了回收行业本身的额外性。