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Building Materials: The Future

For hundreds of years building materials have relatively stayed the same. Bricks, concrete, mortar and wood. But with all the technology around today surely there is something a little more radical and amazing to build with, something that will blow our minds.

Well there is!

Lets take a look at what some of our houses will be made from in the not to distant future.

Liquid Granite: Many builders would say it’s about time that a replacement for cement was found. Current cement takes around fifty years to cure, after that it starts to weaken. This gives the average house around a hundred years of good life.

Liquid granite will last way longer than this, but its main feature is that it will stand temperatures of over one thousand degrees. Normal cement will fail a long time before this so liquid granite will give about four to five hours of high temperature endurance, which in turn will give the main structure of the building much more chance of surviving such an event.

What is liquid granite made from? Well you will be pleased to know that nearly seventy percent of the material can be made from recycled material, which is great news for the environmentalists out there. Amazingly cement production accounts for five percent of the worlds carbon emissions and liquid granite contains less than five percent traditional cement. This is because the process of making ordinary cement requires high heat. Limestone or clay is heated until it forms a dust, then the hardening agent is added

The main constituent is recycled industrial waste in powder form with a hardening agent that allows it to cure like ordinary cement. This is the base form of liquid granite to which various aggregates can be added to form materials like mortar and concrete.

By 2020 building materials in the concrete sector will be up a predicted fifty percent, so liquid granite will have a major impact in the reduction of concretes carbon footprint.

Translucent Concrete: This is a truly advanced material. Translucent concrete is a material that allows light to pass through it. The material is made by layering concrete fibres with optical fibres. The material is then mixed with a bonding agent and left to set. Once the curing process has taken place we are left with a material that looks very similar to traditional concrete, however when lit from front or behind shadows of rear image can be seen.

This is a new way of allowing natural light into structures that need to be made from concrete and also need a great deal of strength in them. Many users of translucent concrete are using it in tile form and some amazing designs can be seen in Japan where translucent concrete is most widely used.

Richlite: This material may be the most important of all as it deals with the subject of paper. Paper wastage is a massive issue in the world today but Richlite makes use of paper waste to for a hardwood like material.

There are many applications for a material such as this. You can pretty much say that anything made out of traditional hardwood like worktops and hardwood sheets can be made out of Richlite.

Richlite is made by combining paper with resin. This sets to form a hard material that can form many internal surfaces or panels. This material in particular is gaining popularity with the construction industry and many companies are looking a Richlite as a serious replacement for wood finishes in the near future.

Here are some of the specifications for Richlite

• Heat resistance- 350 degrees C
• Scratch Resistance- harder than wood and colour is solid all the way through
• Stain resistance- Cleans the same as Hardwood
• Stronger in the Horizonal plain than hardwood, allowing longer sections to laid without any bow.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Stuart_Goldhawk

 

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