Porous clay-organic composite

a potential substitute for foamed styrol

Abstract

To minimize the ecological change due to the human activities, is a current consensus of the world.
The man-induced flow of materials, i. e. from the Earth's crust to surface by mining, utilizing, and abandoning of metals and petroleum, is the original sin for the Earth's ecology. It is, therefore, require presently for science and technology to find probable method of recycled use of metals and petroleum as well as to find probable substitutes produced by some constituents of the natural environment of the Earth's surface. Clays and clay minerals are the attractive materials from such an ecological point of view, because they have many utilizable properties and return again to the Earth when they are abandoned after use.
Natural organics produced by biological activities are also attractive for their reproducibility and abandability in the natural cycles of materials.
Based on such concept and some previous works ourself, we have tried to create a substitute of polystyrene foam, a popular petroleum product widely used as packing and insulating buffer material. The principle was a lyophilization of a thixotropic sols of clays and bio-organic compounds, which make porous composites having similar nature to those of polystyrene foam.
Finally, we are successful in producing a porous clay/bio-organic composite having suitable properties as a substitute of polystyrene foam and in developing a method of its industrialization. Its compression strength is rather better than that of the latter. A problem is, however, remained for its practical production, i. e. its cost of production is still higher than that of polystyrene foam in the present market.