Somewhat unrelated: If you use epoxy for repairs, particularly of plastics (though I just used some for a wood repair), get yourself some fiberglass tape/fabric to use with it. Sometimes I'll lay the tape over the repair, sometimes I'll cut it up into little fragments and mix it directly in the epoxy (depending on if the epoxy is the bulk of the repair, like filling in a hole, or if I'm trying to repair a crack.<p>Also, if you are repairing plastic, consider "hot staples". A friend of mine just educated me on that 6 months ago, and I'm using them all the time, a starter kit costs around $50 though. This is a good, quick demo of them: <a href="https://youtube.com/shorts/43TDecNqTco?si=xsDJ3n7KMjpg8NVw" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/shorts/43TDecNqTco?si=xsDJ3n7KMjpg8NVw</a>
OT: It's difficult for me with my imperfect vision to read this web page because of inadequate contrast between body-text and background. Firefox dev tools measures a 3.52 contrast ratio — WCAG guidelines recommend 7:1 (AAA rating) or 4.5:1 (AA rating). However, viewing the page in reader mode seems to work as a solution.
There are two recycling mechanisms:<p>> <i>After use, the material can simply be ground into powder and pressed into a new shape while heated, causing the bonds to rearrange themselves. This is known as thermomechanical recycling.</i><p>> <i>it can also be chemically dissolved</i><p>I wonder whether either of these opens up any practical durability issues for this variety of epoxy.
This is covered in the article.<p>> We have carried out ten [thermomechanical] recycling cycles, and the epoxy has not lost any significant mechanical strength in the process<p>Chemical dissolving is only needed for carbon fiber composite. 90% of the resin was cited to be recoverable in this process.
I saw that passage, which addresses that durability doesn't degrade through recycling cycles. But what I was curious about was whether this epoxy is more susceptible to weakening when exposed to heat in working environments, perhaps at lower threshold temperatures than common epoxy. Similarly, I wondered whether there were any chemicals which are commonly encountered in working environments which could serve as dissolving agents and damage this epoxy.
I don’t know of any recycled polymer that doesn’t have at least somewhat compromised durability. Doesn’t mean it’s useless though
It appears we got a relevant XKCD just in time: <a href="https://xkcd.com/3194/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/3194/</a>
This looks like recycling fetishism. It's perfectly fine to burn such materials, if they were obtained from non-fossil sources to start with, so there would be no net CO2 addition to the atmosphere.
“The raw materials for epoxy resin production are today largely petroleum derived, although some plant derived sources are now becoming commercially available (e.g. plant derived glycerol used to make epichlorohydrin).”<p>- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy</a><p><i>if</i> they were obtained from non-fossil sources - but they weren’t, and the industry hasn’t switched and may never switch to plant based.<p>Also, what you said isn’t necessarily true even with plant based resins. What is the carbon cost of producing new resin vs recycling old?<p>There’s more to the impact of a material than the carbon stored inside it.<p>Yes, we were all duped by the recycling industry. No that doesn’t make all attempts at recycling a lie.
we are having an existential marine crisis due to the millions of tons of essentialy non recyclable "plastic" bieng dumped in our oceans, a fully recyclable alternative is worth trillions over the long haul.
The switch will happen when a viable alternative is discovered, and a material that has inherent value will be a key requirement.
If this new epoxy is a true engineered material that is suitable for say, vacume infusion molding of things like wind turbine blades,and smaller ships, and injection molding of buckets and computer chasis etc, etc , then it will become universal for those things.
An adjacent design validation question on a green chip factory and product design:<p>Will Phytic acid in Lignin-Vitrimer encase burning CNT carbon nanotubes in a phosphorous char cage, this preventing health hazards and combustion?<p>This says "phosphorous epoxy".<p>FR4 silicon PCBs are N-doped and P-doped.
This is a presser (disguised as a science piece) from the company behind this; take it all with a grain of salt.<p>Also, epoxy already contains harmful endocrine disruptors, adding forever chemicals like those found in almost all flame retardants is just adding fuel to the fire (pun not intended).
EMPA is not a company, it’s a Swiss government agency. Maybe you should apply the grain of salt to your own priors too…
While this is just a press release its about the academic paper, which is open access <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894725066173?via%3Dihub" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138589472...</a><p>It doesnt seem like any of the authors are making this commercially currently
when I hear of industrial uses of phosphorus my ears prick up since phosphorus is a key limiting factor for life.<p>A world where this actually became industrially very successful combined with a lack of recycling could potentially add large new sink for phosphorus.<p>In general, be careful when creating a process which locks meaningful amount of phosphorus out of the biosphere.
I can't imagine this approaches how much is used in agriculture for fertilizer.
When a general study was made back in the 1970s of the limits of substitutability and recyclability of mineral resources, it was found phosphorus likely dictates the minimum amount of mining needed in steady state. It occurs at an average concentration of about 0.1% in the continental crust.<p>I worry just a bit about this in reference to LFP batteries.
I think that was a core plot point of a series of books by Niven I think. Humans are on a planet that has almost no phosphorus or maybe potassium in it's biosphere. Humans have to take it artificially by sprinkling a special salt on every meal. But it's very limited and expensive and so a significant part of the population are mentally handicapped to lesser or greater degrees, generation after generaion.<p>Ah, Destiny's Road, and it was Potassium.<p>"...dooming humanity to a slow mental extinction."<p>Great.