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Not only does the brick need to maintain its shape and hold the clutch, but it also needs to do so throughout the entire generation of games, because Brooks says this material will creep and change shape over time. Standard Lego bricks are tested using high and low temperatures, butter and even fake saliva to ensure that they maintain their integrity over decades of use.

However, Lego has cracked it with its new PET bricks. Well, almost. “We now need to study how to tighten the clutch slightly and how to add color to the bricks,” Brooks said. “When we do this, we will look at the shapes one by one and determine how many ABS bricks can be replaced with PET.”

The key here is that among the 3,500 different shapes produced by Lego, the 2 x 4 brick is one of the most popular bricks. If the company can replace such components with recycled plastic versions, then Lego’s environmental goal will have a major impact, which is to use completely sustainable materials in its products by 2030. Brooks said.For example, we know that most sets have 2 x 4, of course we know a lot Every The set will have a 1 x 1 point. This is by far the most common brick we have made. “

“ABS is very stiff. Very stiff, very precise, very stiff. PET is low in hardness, low in hardness and low in precision, so we need to use impact modifiers on PET. This is the difference here. We are using Different grades of PET, and added the “secret recipe” we are applying for a patent. Therefore, you are looking at the PET we are modifying to make its performance similar to ABS.”

Gregg Beckham of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy and John McGeehan of the University of Portsmouth designed an enzyme in 2018 Digest PET, I am deeply impressed with Lego’s progress.

“ABS is an amazing material. It is versatile because you can change the ratio of A, B, and S. Depending on how you formulate, you can make a large number of different versions of ABS plastic. We touch it every day,” Baker Ham said. “On the other hand, PET is difficult to formulate in a way that has the same material properties as ABS, as you find in Lego bricks. This is undoubtedly a special polymer science challenge. This is so exciting.”

As for why it took decades of plastic production to reach this point, Beckham said that although it would be great if we could wave a magic wand to make it happen, in many cases this task seems difficult. “This is basic material science and engineering. It is necessary to figure out how to use raw materials from recycled plastics or self-recyclable materials to meet the same type of material characteristics,” he said. “As far as ABS bricks are concerned, they are neither derived from recycled plastics nor recycled at the end of their useful lives. This may be able to address both challenges at the same time.”

The new prototype PET brick has another advantage: Compared with the original ABS material brick, its carbon is reduced by 70%.

However, it is interesting that although new ecological plastics are being developed, the real environmental benefits are likely to come from the development of methods to recycle materials that we cannot currently recycle. Something like ABS. “Today’s laboratory research is considering the use of advanced recycling methods that can break down polymers and these long molecular chains into their building blocks,” Beckham said. “Then purify them and turn them back into plastics of the same quality as the original plastics, or recycle them in an open loop and turn them into other things of higher value.”