Sustainable Material Design for Circular Economy

Cementitious Materials for Spray-based 3D Concrete Printing

Dr. Lu Bing has proposed one of the earliest prototypes of spray-based 3D concrete printing systems. It frees the limit on printing directions and extends the application scenarios of automated construction.

The system is used for automated construction on overhanging and overhead surfaces. With good printing quality, post-processing is not required, saving a lot of labor investment and construction time. Generally, structures made by spray-based 3D concrete printing have uniform thickness distribution and natural finish.

Customizable Embossment and Decorative Structures

By tailoring the fresh properties like rheology, pumpability, and buildability, mixtures for customized embossment and decorative structures on the overhanging or overhead surfaces have been developed.

Rheology → Deformation and flow characteristics

Pumpability → Difficulty to pump the material consecutively

Buildability → Maximum built-up thickness with the material

vertical spray thesis.mp4

Spray-based printing on a vertical surface

overhead spray in thesis.mp4

Spray-based printing on an overhead surface

Sustainable Coatings

Marine clay (after 700 °C)

Local wastes including marine clay have been upcycled and applied in the mixture design to replace cement to reduce carbon emission. They were found to have good spray-based printing performance.

Marine clay needs significant lower calcination temperatures (700 °C ~ 800 °C) than cement (1450 °C), releasing less carbon dioxide and consuming less energy.

Cement-free mixture has also been designed with MgO/slag blends for further improvement of sustainability.

Embossments by spray-based 3D printing with marine clay blends and MgO/slag blends

High-Performance Printable Concrete with Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) Ash from Oil Refinery Industry

Singapore is one of the largest global petroleum and oil refinery hubs in the world. Singapore handles about 1.5 million barrels per day. Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) is a critical process in oil refinery, which generates tons of waste: FCC ash every day.

Currently, the major waste treatment for FCC ash is landfill disposal, which is considered as resource-depletive and unsustainable.

But ... it can also be a useful cement substitute!

Sustainable 3D Concrete Printing with FCC ash

A high-performance 3D printable concrete with FCC ash has been developed with systematical tailoring from rheology, pumpability, buildability, hydration, and leaching.

It suits for high-speed printing with less cost and carbon emission.

The live-streamed presentation on high-performance printable concrete with FCC ash, Global Young Scientist Summit 2022 (GYSS 2022)

The high-performance 3D printable concrete with FCC ash provides a new waste management method for FCC ash and also a good material for 3D concrete printing, pushing forward circular economy in both oil refinery industry and construction industry.

The invention also contributes to less carbon emission and leaching hazard to the built environment.

3D Concrete Printing with Wood Waste/Sawdust

Wood waste/sawdust from furniture manufacturing industry has been used to replace sand in the 3D printable concrete. Sustainable plant pot and decorative façade part have been printed.

This applied research study attends to the issue of river sand resources and waste upcycling.

Waste Valorization in Strain-Hardening Cementitious Composites

Waste granite powder has been used to replace sand in the special type of strain-hardening fibre-reinforced cementitious composites, Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC).

This research study also attends to the issue of river sand resources and waste upcycling.

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