Making buildings, cars and planes from materials based on plant fibres | Hacker News Reader

Making buildings, cars and planes from materials based on plant fibres

economist.com

17 pointsprostoalex9 comments

It would take a whole lot less material in general for things if we expanded our imagination beyond stuff like cars as the sole means of moving around. Luckily the skateboard I take to the train station is already made of plant material.

>Just 500 grams of platelets [from discarded carrots] can reduce the amount of cement needed to make a cubic metre of concrete by about 40kg—a saving of 10%. Dr Saafi and his team have now embarked on a two-year study to investigate the process in more detail and to perfect the best mix for use by the construction industry.

This is really interesting and fascinating. This seems almost too good to be true. Perhaps we are moving slowly to a return of natural components in our materials. Im thinking of a term of like "nature-punk" :)

"Naturepunk" sounds fine. On the other hand "fiberpunk" would sound like oldsters made cranky by digestive problems.

Mh... Composite materials are very nice for many small/easy-to-replace usages, because they have excellent performances but tend to last far less than "solid" materials (sorry I do not know a better English terms) and they are harder to check.

I do not like much the idea of using them for something else...

Some of these advances in wood involve much worse environmental processes, such as replacing all the internal water with plastic or glue. It's not plant based if it's the same old horrible stuff with just some plant fingers in it.

https://archive.ph/8EMO3

Isn't this called "wood" throughout history?

No. From the first paragraph of the article: “USING carrots to create concrete, turning wood into plastic, or even compressing it into a “super wood” that is as light and strong as titanium might sound like a series of almost Frankensteinish experiments. Yet all three are among the latest examples of employing natural fibres from plants as eco-friendly additives or alternatives to man-made materials”

There's been some life in the engineered timber space recently.

Hopefully some exciting (and sustainable) new architectural possibilities lie around the corner.

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