Building bricks including plastics
AssigneeKing Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology
InventorFares D. Alsewailem
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A brick includes a thermoplastic material, such as high density polyethylene (HDPE), and a cement-containing material. The brick may be made by mixing thermoplastic material and dry, uncured cement-containing material. This mixture is placed in a mold. The mold is heated while the mixture is compressed to melt or soften the thermoplastic material and to bind the particulate material in the mold into the shape of a brick. After the hardened brick is removed from the mold, the surface of the brick may be sprayed with water to cure cement-containing material on the surface of the brick.
Claims20
A method for preparing a brick, the method comprising the steps of:
- (a) preparing a mixture comprising dry, uncured, cement-containing material and a thermoplastic material;
- (b) placing the mixture from step (a) into a mold;
- (c) applying pressure to the mold of step (b) to compress the mixture while maintaining the temperature of the mixture at a temperature sufficient to melt or soften the thermoplastic material and bind the cement-containing mixture in a matrix of thermoplastic material in the form of a brick such that, at the completion of step (c), internal regions of the brick comprise cement-containing material which has not been hardened by reaction with water;
- and
- (d) removing the brick from the mold of step (c),
- wherein the thermoplastic material comprises HDPE, and
- wherein the mixture from step (a) further comprises a plastic material, other than HDPE, wherein the plastic material is at least one of polyacrylamide and polyacrylimide, and wherein the plastic material is greater than 0 wt % and no more than 10 wt % based on the weight of HDPE in the mixture.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.