Waste and Recycled Textiles as Reinforcements of Building Materials

Currently, the use of composite materials in the construction areas has had a great impact on the society; mainly, those related with sustainability and environment aspects. Daily proposals aimed at overcoming the properties of traditional materials that arise, which include emergent materials either from waste or recycled products. One of them is related to the textile materials, which include fibers such as wool, hemp, linen, and cotton. In the past decade, special attention has been focused on the used clothes, which represent a source of raw materials environmentally responsible and economically profitable. Textile materials are discarded daily around the world, representing approximately 1.5% of the generated waste. Blue jeans are the most used clothing in the world, and they are elaborated by one of the most commonly used natural textile fibers—cotton. Textile materials have been reused in different applications, for example, in the production of poor-quality wires, crushed to manufacture noise and temperature insulation materials, and as fillers or reinforcements of concrete. In this chapter, different topics are described that include: (a) environmental impact of textile waste—a result of massive consumption of clothing, (b) recycling and reuse of textile waste, and (c) waste and recycled textile materials used as building materials

Recovery of cotton fibers from waste Blue-Jeans and its use in polyester concrete

Se estudia el efecto de agregar fibras de algodón, provenientes de pantalones de mezclilla de desecho, en concreto polimérico elaborado con resina poliéster.Currently, the consumer tendency causes that the garments are dismissed more quickly, which generate increment of textile waste, such as Blue-Jeans. In this work, polyester concrete with waste cotton fibers was elaborated, and a novel treatment by gamma irradiation was carried out. The results show up to 40% improvement on the compressive strength, as well as 7% on the flexural strength. Additional improvements for irradiated concrete were obtained, when 300 kGy of irradiation dose was applied. Modifications on the surface, chemical structural and crystallinity of irradiated waste cotton fibers, were related with improvements on the mechanical properties of concrete

Remoción de contaminantes biorefractarios en aguas residuales industriales mediante métodos electroquímicos.

The goal of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of electrochemical treatment in removing biorefractory compounds from a complex industrial wastewater. The removal of organic pollutants by Electrocoagulation system were evaluated, using iron electrodes. Under optimal conditions of pH 8 and 45.45Am−2 current density, the electrochemical method yields a very effective reduction of all organic pollutants, The optimal treatment reduced chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 70%, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) by 55 %, color by 81%, turbidity by 80% and total coliforms by 99%.El objetivo de este trabajo es investigar la efectividad del tratamiento electroquímico en la remoción de compuestos biorefractarios presentes en aguas residuales industriales. Se evaluó la remoción de compuestos orgánicos mediante el sistema de Electrocoagulación, utilizando electrodos de hierro, se determinaron las mejores condiciones de operación pH 8 y densidad de corriente de 45.45 Am-2, obteniendo una disminución en la demanda química de oxígeno (DQO) de 70%, 55% de DBO5, 81% de color, 80% de turbidez y 99% de coliformes totales

Waste Materials from Tetra Pak Packages as Reinforcement of Polymer Concrete

This article discusses how compressive and flexural strength and modulus of elasticity decrease gradually, when either Tetra Pak particle concentration or particle size is increased

Adsorption of Lead Ions from Aqueous Solutions Using Gamma Irradiated Minerals

For the first time, an irradiated mineral was used as a novel modified adsorbent for lead removal of aqueous solutions. The effects of gamma radiation doses and temperature on the lead adsorption capacity of an unknown mineral were evaluated. The results show that, in the chemisorption process, the highest adsorption capacity (9.91 mg/g) and the maximum percentage of lead removal (99.1%) were reached at 40°C when using an irradiated mineral at 150 kGy. The improvement on the lead adsorption speed was the most important feature of the irradiated mineral. The experimental results were successfully correlated with the pseudo second-order kinetic model. For all results, the average absolute relative deviations (AARD) were less than 13.20%, and the correlation factor (r2) was higher than 0.998. Moreover, the average values of the thermodynamic parameters (ΔG0=-10612 J/mol, ΔH0=-12360 J/mol, and ΔS0=171 J/mol K) suggest the feasibility of the proposed process, in terms of the endothermic and irreversible chemisorption results; moreover, ion exchange was evaluated through the EDS results. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the unknown irradiated mineral is mainly composed of quartz (SiO2), calcite (CaCO3), and calcium magnesium silicate (Ca0.15Mg0.85) Mg (SiO6)

Characterization of Lignocellulosic Fruit Waste as an Alternative Feedstock for Bioethanol Production

To use a new potential lignocellulosic bioresource that has several attractive agroenergy features for ethanol production, the chemical characterization and compositional analysis of several fruit wastes were carried out. Orange bagasse and orange, banana, and mango peels were studied to determine their general biomass characteristics and to provide detailed analysis of their chemical structures. Semiquantitative analysis showed that the components for each fruit waste differed with respect to chemical composition. Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) of the residual biomass showed the presence of various functional groups – aldehydes or ketones (C=O), alkanes (C-C), and ethers (C-O-C). Even water molecules were detected, indicating the complex nature of the feedstocks. The concentrations of total sugars ranged between 0.487 g∙g−1 and 0.591 g∙g−1 of dry weight biomass. The thermal profiles (TG-DSC) of the residual fruits occurred in at least three steps, which are associated with the main components (hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin). The decomposition by thermal analysis was completed at around 600 °C and was influenced by the nature of the component ratio