[HN Gopher] More sustainable epoxy thanks to phosphorus
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More sustainable epoxy thanks to phosphorus
Author : JeanKage
Score : 67 points
Date : 2026-01-14 10:43 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.empa.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.empa.ch)
| pfdietz wrote:
| This looks like recycling fetishism. It's perfectly fine to burn
| such materials, if they were obtained from non-fossil sources to
| start with, so there would be no net CO2 addition to the
| atmosphere.
| westurner wrote:
| An adjacent design validation question on a green chip factory
| and product design:
|
| Will Phytic acid in Lignin-Vitrimer encase burning CNT carbon
| nanotubes in a phosphorous char cage, this preventing health
| hazards and combustion?
|
| This says "phosphorous epoxy".
|
| FR4 silicon PCBs are N-doped and P-doped.
| metalman wrote:
| we are having an existential marine crisis due to the millions
| of tons of essentialy non recyclable "plastic" bieng dumped in
| our oceans, a fully recyclable alternative is worth trillions
| over the long haul. The switch will happen when a viable
| alternative is discovered, and a material that has inherent
| value will be a key requirement. If this new epoxy is a true
| engineered material that is suitable for say, vacume infusion
| molding of things like wind turbine blades,and smaller ships,
| and injection molding of buckets and computer chasis etc, etc ,
| then it will become universal for those things.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > existential marine crisis
|
| I think you're being overly hysterical there. Plastics in the
| ocean are certainly not ideal, but "existential"?
| metalman wrote:
| the known consequences of polluting the the entire base of
| the planets food web isn't existential? "scientists",
| politicians, beurocrats, lawyers, and the mega wealthy have
| kept moving the agread upon limits to environmental
| exploitation, with zero sign that they have any other
| intent, than to take more3 what you are missing is that no
| one will ask for permission, to fix that.
| kennywinker wrote:
| "The raw materials for epoxy resin production are today largely
| petroleum derived, although some plant derived sources are now
| becoming commercially available (e.g. plant derived glycerol
| used to make epichlorohydrin)."
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy
|
| _if_ they were obtained from non-fossil sources - but they
| weren't, and the industry hasn't switched and may never switch
| to plant based.
|
| Also, what you said isn't necessarily true even with plant
| based resins. What is the carbon cost of producing new resin vs
| recycling old?
|
| There's more to the impact of a material than the carbon stored
| inside it.
|
| Yes, we were all duped by the recycling industry. No that
| doesn't make all attempts at recycling a lie.
| HardCodedBias wrote:
| when I hear of industrial uses of phosphorus my ears prick up
| since phosphorus is a key limiting factor for life.
|
| A world where this actually became industrially very successful
| combined with a lack of recycling could potentially add large new
| sink for phosphorus.
|
| In general, be careful when creating a process which locks
| meaningful amount of phosphorus out of the biosphere.
| pfdietz wrote:
| When a general study was made back in the 1970s of the limits
| of substitutability and recyclability of mineral resources, it
| was found phosphorus likely dictates the minimum amount of
| mining needed in steady state. It occurs at an average
| concentration of about 0.1% in the continental crust.
|
| I worry just a bit about this in reference to LFP batteries.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I think that was a core plot point of a series of books by
| Niven I think. Humans are on a planet that has almost no
| phosphorus or maybe potassium in it's biosphere. Humans have to
| take it artificially by sprinkling a special salt on every
| meal. But it's very limited and expensive and so a significant
| part of the population are mentally handicapped to lesser or
| greater degrees, generation after generaion.
|
| Ah, Destiny's Road, and it was Potassium.
|
| "...dooming humanity to a slow mental extinction."
|
| Great.
| pretzellogician wrote:
| There was also Black Destroyer by a.e. Van vogt, where the
| cat-like creature specifically ate phosphorus:
| https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/153274
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Star Trek episode 2 the creature removes all your salt.
| There are a lot of examples of a creature extracting all of
| something like that but these are kind of a different idea.
|
| The potassium one is particularly horrible to think about
| because it's insideous. The problem removes your very
| ability to respond to the problem. The entire race just
| gradually devolving back to stupid, especially if it was
| from the result of our own actions consuming it all for
| some industrial or consumer purpose. And before that
| happens, for untold generations there would be rich people
| who could afford their kids to grow up with enough and
| perpetuate the permanent ruling class, and a permanent
| poverty class that physically can not ever escape or
| compete regardless of their attitude or effort.
| s0rce wrote:
| I can't imagine this approaches how much is used in agriculture
| for fertilizer.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| This is a presser (disguised as a science piece) from the company
| behind this; take it all with a grain of salt.
|
| Also, epoxy already contains harmful endocrine disruptors, adding
| forever chemicals like those found in almost all flame retardants
| is just adding fuel to the fire (pun not intended).
| s0rce wrote:
| While this is just a press release its about the academic
| paper, which is open access
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138589472...
|
| It doesnt seem like any of the authors are making this
| commercially currently
| LoganDark wrote:
| They're looking for commercial partners though.
| bootsmann wrote:
| EMPA is not a company, it's a Swiss government agency. Maybe
| you should apply the grain of salt to your own priors too...
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Thanks for the correction but they're tooting their own horn
| either way.
| s0rce wrote:
| Yes, this is very common for academic publications,
| particularly when there could be broad interest. For
| example, here is the press release from the first
| publication of my PhD https://web.archive.org/web/201101150
| 53058/https://www.north...
| rectang wrote:
| OT: It's difficult for me with my imperfect vision to read this
| web page because of inadequate contrast between body-text and
| background. Firefox dev tools measures a 3.52 contrast ratio --
| WCAG guidelines recommend 7:1 (AAA rating) or 4.5:1 (AA rating).
| However, viewing the page in reader mode seems to work as a
| solution.
| rectang wrote:
| There are two recycling mechanisms:
|
| > _After use, the material can simply be ground into powder and
| pressed into a new shape while heated, causing the bonds to
| rearrange themselves. This is known as thermomechanical
| recycling._
|
| > _it can also be chemically dissolved_
|
| I wonder whether either of these opens up any practical
| durability issues for this variety of epoxy.
| hammock wrote:
| I don't know of any recycled polymer that doesn't have at least
| somewhat compromised durability. Doesn't mean it's useless
| though
| vesinisa wrote:
| This is covered in the article.
|
| > We have carried out ten [thermomechanical] recycling cycles,
| and the epoxy has not lost any significant mechanical strength
| in the process
|
| Chemical dissolving is only needed for carbon fiber composite.
| 90% of the resin was cited to be recoverable in this process.
| rectang wrote:
| I saw that passage, which addresses that durability doesn't
| degrade through recycling cycles. But what I was curious
| about was whether this epoxy is more susceptible to weakening
| when exposed to heat in working environments, perhaps at
| lower threshold temperatures than common epoxy. Similarly, I
| wondered whether there were any chemicals which are commonly
| encountered in working environments which could serve as
| dissolving agents and damage this epoxy.
| zahlman wrote:
| It appears we got a relevant XKCD just in time:
| https://xkcd.com/3194/
| linsomniac wrote:
| Somewhat unrelated: If you use epoxy for repairs, particularly of
| plastics (though I just used some for a wood repair), get
| yourself some fiberglass tape/fabric to use with it. Sometimes
| I'll lay the tape over the repair, sometimes I'll cut it up into
| little fragments and mix it directly in the epoxy (depending on
| if the epoxy is the bulk of the repair, like filling in a hole,
| or if I'm trying to repair a crack.
|
| Also, if you are repairing plastic, consider "hot staples". A
| friend of mine just educated me on that 6 months ago, and I'm
| using them all the time, a starter kit costs around $50 though.
| This is a good, quick demo of them:
| https://youtube.com/shorts/43TDecNqTco?si=xsDJ3n7KMjpg8NVw
| Retr0id wrote:
| I do the "hot staples" trick but I just use wire scraps and a
| soldering iron
| ajb wrote:
| Interesting. Of course, it's at least safe if you have a good
| temperature control. I'm guessing you use single core wire?
| What kind of tip do you use?
| Retr0id wrote:
| I mostly use the square pins from SIL headers, bent into an
| appropriate shape. I use a pointed tip but I don't think it
| matters much, as long as it can transfer heat into the pin.
|
| I most recently used this to repair a snapped headband on
| some sony headphones. I'd previously tried to superglue it,
| but the glue eventually came undone - but my "staples" are
| still going strong.
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