A boat made in Germany, a pedestrian bridge in the Netherlands and wooden nails from Austria might appear to have little in common, but they do share one important trait: They are all made with biocomposite materials. A look at the three winners of the 2017 Innovation Award at the European Conference on Wood and Natural Fiber Composites shows the advantages of combining the strength, durability and light weight of traditional composites with the environmental benefits of natural, renewable resources.<\/p>\n
Green Sailing<\/p>\n
Friedrich Johann Deimann started GreenBoats to develop alternatives to the fiberglass and styrene-based polyester resins typically used to build boats. He found eco-friendly, viable replacements with similar properties in flax fiber, cork and bio-based (linseed oil) epoxy resins.<\/p>\n
The GreenBente24 sailboat is made from 80 percent renewable materials and is vacuum infused. Flax fibers provide stiffness, vibration damping, and impact and abrasion resistance, while the lightweight cork adds water repellency. The result is a boat that doesn\u2019t splinter if damaged, doesn\u2019t release toxic substances into the water and doesn\u2019t allow water to enter the hull\u2019s composite sandwich core. \u201cThe products have a really nice haptic in the end,\u201d Deimann adds.<\/p>\n
The strength and stiffness of the flax-based composite is slightly less than glass fiber laminates. But the flax fibers have half the density of glass fibers, so the green boats weigh about 100 pounds less. The renewable biomaterials are also easier on the environment, since they can be harvested and processed with very little CO2 emissions.<\/p>\n
Although the GreenBente24 is about 15 to 20 percent more expensive than similar high-end boats made with epoxy resin, GreenBoats is seeing steady customer demand. \u201cThe first customers are already sailing happily on German seas and lakes,\u201d says Deimann. The biocomposite material he developed for the boats is also being used to produce travel trailers in Europe.<\/p>\n
Footbridge to the Future<\/p>\n
Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands is home to the world\u2019s first footbridge built completely with biocomposite materials. The 46-foot-long bridge was a collaborative effort by a consortium that included several regional universities and composite manufacturer NPSP.<\/p>\n
The bridge weighs approximately 3,300 pounds and is designed to carry loads of 102 pounds per square foot. Its biocomposite material includes hemp and flax fibers. \u201cWe had the idea that flax fibers would be able to fulfill the mechanical requirements for a bridge like this,\u201d says Patrick Teuffel, professor of innovative structural design at Eindhoven University. The fibers were also readily available from the project\u2019s industrial partners.<\/p>\n
To manufacture the bridge, workers attached the fibers to a biological polylactic acid (PLA) foam core, then introduced a bio-resin using a vacuum injection process.
\nThe bridge, installed over a stream in October 2016, includes 28 sensors that continue to measure its strength, stiffness and deformation (creep behavior) over time. The university staff is also testing the behavior of the bridge materials in the lab.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still not a lot of experience about how [the bio-material] will behave long term,\u201d Teuffel says. \u201cIf you really intend to have these kinds of projects for 10, 20 or even 60 years, you have to define a certain stress level that should not be exceeded to avoid creep problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team has acquired a grant to build a small biocomposite pavilion and hopes to construct another bridge in Eindhoven this year. \u201cI\u2019m sure there will be more applications in the future,\u201d Teuffel says.<\/p>\n
Nailing It<\/p>\n
Wooden pegs are one of the oldest known fasteners in the world, but the Beck Fastener Group in Austria put a very modern spin on the product with its LignoLoc\u00ae<\/sup> collated wooden nails. The headless nails are made from straight, high-density, indigenous beech wood, compressed with a phenolic resin to yield a fastener with a tensile strength similar to aluminum nails. A specially designed nail gun shoots the nails into wood.<\/p>\n One advantage to LignoLoc nails is that there is no thermal transfer, according to Chad M. Giese, national sales and product manager for FASCO American, which distributes Beck\u2019s products in North America. \u201cThey are only as conductive as the material they\u2019re fastening,\u201d he says. \u201cMetal nails transmit hot and cold from the inside of the building to the outside \u2013 or vice versa \u2013 and that creates condensation, which can lead to rot around the nail.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition, LignoLoc nails can be sanded or cut without damaging any bits or saws used during construction. Plus, driving the nails into wood creates \u201clignin welding,\u201d a bond formed when the heat of the friction of the driven nail melts the lignin, an organic polymer found in the cell walls of wood.<\/p>\n LignoLoc nails have been used for fastening cross-laminated timber and in the production of ecological furniture and high-end green buildings. Wooden pallet manufacturers are another potential market, since they can shred their products after they\u2019re used without having to remove metals in advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A boat made in Germany, a pedestrian bridge in the Netherlands and wooden nails from Austria might appear to have little in common, but they do share one important trait: They are all made with biocomposite materials. A look at the three winners of the 2017 Innovation Award at the European Conference on Wood and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11286,11877,12661],"supplier":[14201,13741,552],"class_list":["post-56275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biocomposites","tag-naturalfibres","tag-resins","supplier-beck-fastener-group","supplier-greenboats","supplier-technische-universiteit-eindhoven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56275"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=56275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}