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

Circular11正在用一种复合材料开发一种屋顶系统，这种材料是我们用目前缺乏终端市场的低等级塑料混合合成的，因此不能回收。这个项目的重点是重新设计模具，以便使当前的原型适应可扩展的制造过程。我们已经对这种材料进行了强度、热学和防火测试，并在英国生产和销售用这种材料制成的产品。它的性能良好，足以满足对高循环再造含量建筑产品日益增长的需求，我们已收到伊甸园计划等机构的商业意向，为他们的新建和翻新工程提供这种瓷砖。然而，目前的原型砖是用一个简单的窄模具制作的，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数据集，我们的材料的流变行为，所以我们将设计一个大批量生产的模具，是专门适应我们的材料。该项目具有创新性，因为它采用工业聚合物生产工艺，从废物流中创造出其他人无法使用的高价值产品。其他公司已经证明，用再生塑料制成的屋顶瓦片有市场需求。然而，目前这些都是由其他制造业需要的相同的商业级回收流制成的，这意味着价格上涨，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，但它显然推动了回收行业本身的附加性。

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.