Cellular concrete and Geo-polymers by Airstone Basalt

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Gunes Hellweger Apr 26, 2014 08:52 Member 1 \| Share via:	Dear Airstone Basalt, I reviewed your proposal and as a coLab catalyst, I'd like to bring up a few questions: 1- What's availability of Basalt fibers in nature, is there enough supply to sustain this solution? Is it readily available for all manufacturers, or is it limited to a geographical area? I believe it is brought from quarry sources. How spread out are these sources and is there a cost/environmental impact associated with the delivery of basalt fiber? 2- You may give a brief description of the process the basalt fiber goes through before it is transformed in the fiber form. What is the environmental impact of the manufacturing process of Basalt fiber from the raw material to industrial form. 3- What is the optimum percentage of basalt fiber that can be used in concrete? Is it 5% 10% or 25%? Based on that percentage you can provide a percentage reduction of the green house gases, for the cement replaced with the basalt material. Best regards, Gunes Hellweger
Doron Bracha Apr 29, 2014 11:30 Member 2 \| Share via:	Following Ms. Hellweger's very good points, I would only add that we need more info on the bigger picture, the life-cycle analysis. Just as you'd be surprised to learn that hybrid or electric cars aren't necessarily much greener overall, you need to consider all the resources that were consumed and the CO2 and pollution that were emitted in the entire process (mining, processing, transporting, manufacturing etc, and also disposing or recycling at the end of use). When you compare that with the alternative, you can estimate the potential benefit. Similarly, rapidly renewable materials like bamboo are great, but by the time you ship it from China to the US, is it really green?.. When everything is considered and factored in, perhaps the conclusion would be that it's beneficial in certain regions, where basalt fibers are available, but less if long distance transporting is required. Additional research and info would help. Cheers !..
Chad Knutsen May 17, 2014 03:53 Member 3 \| Share via:	Ahoy, would it be possible to use your binder alongside hemp fibre and lime to make some damn fine hempcrete? Just a thought... https://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/1300403/planId/1305704
Derrek Clarke Jun 3, 2014 06:18 Catalyst 4 \| Share via:	Very interesting idea, thank you for the proposal! Finding new ways to improve on the current composition of concrete is definitely needed. In addition to the great points listed above, i'd also like to know more about the proposed product customer. - Is it suggested that individual NGOs and developers will be the end users or larger construction companies? - Would you be the concrete block manufacturer or as it sounds in the proposal are you the machinery manufacturer and it is up to someone else to purchase the machine and manufacture the blocks? There are different cost structures depending on which model you are proposing. - Concrete is naturally porous and in adding more air to the mixture will probably become more so, allowing more water to progress through the blocks. You mention that the blocks are waterproof. Are there additional chemicals being added to the concrete to achieve the waterproofness? If so, what are these chemicals and their effect on the environment? Good luck!
Dan Whittet Jun 17, 2014 09:44 Fellow 5 \| Share via:	Airstone Basalt Thank you for making me aware of the potential benefits of Basalt Fiber in air entrained concrete. I agree with your suggestion that lighter material with a higher tensile strength would improve the concrete used in walls and in cast beams. I noticed that basalt had a lower modulus of elasticity than steel, would this be an issue in terms of vibration or earthquake conditions? While very few full environmental product declarations have been developed for concrete mix designs, there are some and they are of great interest to the sustainability community. I suggest you develop some particular mix analysis that might have application to typical new building constructions and provide EPD information that can incorporate the comments of gunesh and help us to understand the long range emissions and life cycle advantages of your process. Because this is a viable and important proposal I would like to see additional references to previous research that you consider signifigant, and a comparison table of four or five mix designs based on the basalt and air process compared to standard portland cement that includes full cost benefit, transportation and set up costs and finally any liabilities in terms of engineering. Thanks for your good idea.
Chad Knutsen Jun 17, 2014 12:41 Member 6 \| Share via:	End of the day, hemp is simply a better way to make darn near everything. Concrete included. If we replace concrete with hempcrete we can literally invert 40 percent of the worlds emissions. Only Hemp can do this.
Chad Knutsen Jun 17, 2014 12:54 Member 7 \| Share via:	As far as we can tell.
Anton Chupilko Jun 18, 2014 03:04 Member 8 \| Share via:	Dear Team! Any non local construction materials to be moved for a long distance as well as requiring significant non sustainable mining and extraction can not turn the way of building to be low carbon! i spend over 10 years introducing AAC in Russia and erecting whole light concrete industry in a largest territory in the World - 85% of all carbon footprint (price of row materials) are transportation and mining ! Thanks