The birth of a new material
At Onn Outside in Erandio, they design, manufacture and sell street furniture. Once, while working on a project for the Catalan architect Quim Larrea, they realized that a new material was needed; a material that would withstand shocks and abrasions well.
SANTI BADIOLA; Onn Outside: At first we thought about ordinary concrete, but we realized that it had a very high density and that it would be too heavy. We also considered polymer concrete, but we found that the use of aggregates did not imply innovation. So we hit him through the mineral line.
In the end, the project did not advance, but the material did. It was called Ecoretech. It is made of a mixture of metals, accompanied by a plastic binder and various additives. But it looks like a stone. It can be said that it is an artificial stone with special characteristics.
DIEGO GÓMEZ; Onn Outside: We had a need, but we didn’t know how to deal with it. We started researching on our own and got very good looking results. Since we did not have the capacity for development, we contacted Gaiker. It is an advanced technological center where they had the knowledge and capacity to develop such a research project.
KOLDO GONDRA; Gaiker-IK4: They came with an idea. They wanted to develop a material and they had done some small tests. They wanted to know what processes can be used to manufacture this material industrially and how the mechanical properties and fire performance of this material can be improved.
To manufacture this product, several processes were analyzed in Gaiker. Two of them were selected, casting and pressing, and they began to improve.
In fact, the main advantage of the material is that it has a natural appearance but offers a wide range of production possibilities.
DIEGO GÓMEZ; Onn Outside: It provides great flexibility in its manufacture. It is a material with a natural appearance, a stone aspect, but it is manufactured like plastic: in mold, by casting, by extrusion... In this way, we can insert metallic elements inside the material, which gives us many possibilities: lighting systems that are integrated, heating systems...
Other features that have been investigated in Gaiker include the mechanical properties of the material. In this room, bending tests have been carried out to measure resistance.
KOLDO GONDRA; Gaiker-IK4: We put a test piece on two supports. We exert force on it from above, and we measure how much force we have to exert to break the material. That's where we get the resistance. We have achieved very good mechanical properties. Four times better compared to ordinary concrete.
In this other test, the behavior of the material with respect to fire is analyzed. In a corner of a room, they simulate the burning of a trash can that is made with Ecoretech. The temperature reaches a range of 500 to 600 degrees.
KOLDO GONDRA; Gaiker-IK4: That's what we're doing, improving our fire behavior. Polymeric materials do not exhibit good fire performance. We’re improving that, and for now, we’re getting good results.
Toxic gases emitted by plastics during smoking are also critical. The Gaiter technicians collect the gases in these vessels and measure their concentrations.
KOLDO GONDRA; Gaiker-IK4: In terms of toxicity, the results are not so bad because the Ecoretech material carries a lot of cargo. And since it is an inorganic filler, it has no effect.
The Ecoretech composition has a fixed core, but the formulation can vary according to the requirements of each product. For example, lighter elements can be obtained by making a foam of the material that is 20 times lighter than the original material and filling the pieces with that foam. For example, in the case of this balustrade, weight relief has been achieved by maintaining a high strength.
DIEGO GÓMEZ; Onn Outside: It is the dream of any designer. You give him the material, and he can do anything that looks natural, using any manufacturing process. Now we're testing them on the seats, on the waste containers... on the usual items. But our desire, which drove this project, is to use it to create new elements. Cities change very quickly, and technology offers new opportunities (such as LED lighting) to make non-traditional products.
They plan to go beyond Onn Outside’s street furniture and are exploring new uses of the material for cutting-edge architecture. In this project, they will also have Gaiker as their technological partner.
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