Yes, let’s talk about bricks. I know it’s probably not the most sexiest topic, not that attractive too. But it can be very innovative.

 

Meet Emy Bensdorp. She wants to do something good.

 

We have a lot of polluted land, land which we need to build houses on. PFAFS is a chemical that can not be broken down and is thus found in the land, soil, water, wildlife, and even people. In the Netherlands, this resulted in shutting down the building sector for a while, no new houses were made. When the PFAFS polluted soil is heated a bit, the PFAF will be pulled out, but the soil has become useless. The only thing you can do is store it, but well no one is waiting for containers or landfills, filled with useless material which once was soil. So just simple heating isn’t a great solution

 

Emmy has a design background, therefore she knows that if you heat clay high enough (like above 900 C degrees), it becomes a ceramic material. And that’s exactly what she did. By heating polluted soil to such a high temperature, way higher than needed to take the pollution out, she ends up with some pretty good ceramic material, like bricks.

 

Bricks, which are useful again for building houses (on clean lands).