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

Circular11正在开发一种由复合材料制成的屋顶系统，这种复合材料是从目前缺乏终端市场的低档塑料混合物中合成的，因此无法回收。这个项目的重点是重新设计模具，以使目前的原型适应可扩展的制造过程。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它制成的产品。它的性能足以满足对高回收含量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，为他们的新建筑和翻新提供瓷砖。但目前，原型瓷砖是使用简单的狭窄模具制造的，如果安装在工业机器上，会产生背压问题。更复杂的模具需要更精确的材料流变行为数据集，因此我们将设计一种特别适合我们的材料的大批量生产模具。这个项目具有创新性，因为它正在采用工业聚合物生产工艺，从其他人无法使用的废流中创造出高价值的产品。其他公司已经证明，用回收塑料制成的屋顶瓦有市场需求。然而，这些垃圾目前是由其他制造业想要的相同的商业级回收流制成的，这意味着价格被推高，而系统中的回收总量仍然很低。我们正在生产一种性能相似的产品，但这显然推动了回收部门本身的附加性。

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.