从回收到再循环——土壤的水热固化体·土壤陶瓷的开发

摘要

The global environment is now exerting treatinfluence on our life. It is not an overstatement to say that thereworld be no meaning in developing new materials unless dueconsideration is given to the load they exert on the global environment.We have been studying a new manufacturing system which isbased on both mankind and earth in the coming unavoidablerecirculation based society.One of the solutions is to develop the closed manufacturingsystem which creates the material where input (fossil energy andnatural materials) and output (exhaust gases and waste materials)will be reduced to their utmost limits.In this report, as one of the examples of developing the materialconsidered for both mankind and earth, details of the developmentand its actual results on the application of hydrothermallysolidified soil (Earth Ceramics) to a house floor are discussed.This was developed from the research on the closed manufacturing system.Originally, soil has high abilities such as controlling humidity,preserving heat and so on. It is possible to solidify soil by addingslight amount of Ca (OH)_2, mixing, forming and then processingunder saturated steam pressure at lower than 200 deg C where theoriginal ability of soil is maintained. The solidified material hassimilar strength to that of ordinary cement and its energyconsumption for solidification is almost 1/5 to 1/7 of ceramicmanufacturing in general.This solidified material has high humidity controlling ability andrelatively high heat capacity and it is possible to control a roomclimate in a sophisticated way without using fossil energy. Afterone year application to a house, it was clarified that the applicationof Earth Ceramics can reduce energy in everyday life almost by 25 percent.