Environmentally Friendly Polymer Concrete: Polymer Treatment, Processing, and Investigating Carbon Footprint with Climate Change.

Climate change is being currently faced globally; controlling the plastic waste and gas emission is aimed to reduce their hazardous effects. In this work, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymer wastes are used as fillers to calcium silicate. Chemical treatment was performed to get the best efficiency of the binder material with the treated PET (TPET) and treated PVC (TPVC). The used silicate, new nonhydraulic dicalcium silicate, was synthesized by sintering. A new environmentally friendly polymer concrete, based on different concentrations of PET-/TPET-/PVC-/TPVC-dicalcium silicate composites, was prepared and cured by carbonation. FTIR analysis confirms that the treatment gave functional groups on the polymer surface; also, the hydrophilicity was increased after treatment. SEM photos show that the treated polymers have a rougher surface, which led to improved attachment with cement. The structures of the prepared and cured cement materials are proved by XRD, FTIR analysis, and SEM, through the change of calcium silicate to carbonate. Carbon footprint is used to analyze the environmental implications of the prepared composites. After the treatment reaction, the TPET-cement and TPVC-cement composites showed improved compression and flexural properties and more stability against water absorption. The novelty arises from recycling this plastic waste in the proposed low-energy dicalcium silicate cement, for the first time, to give improved environmentally friendly composites after converting CO gas to carbonates, with the reduced carbon footprint.