Alchimia.BE


Wasting plastics = Wasting research efforts

 

Envision a 2 dimension circular material economy

 

Recycle 'color'

 

‘i like’ an aesthetic & climate-ethic economy.

 

 

 

Circular material management is the ultimate solution against wasting energy and valuable materials. Energy and material over-consumption potentially disrupt ecology, bio-diversity, climate stability and ultimately social coherency.

 

I bring lab-scale concepts, demo's and proprietary recipes to convert a plastic waste into a circular material system. I go for maximum reuse of “colour” as a valuable function : separating waste by color, recombine and upgrade looks. I design special material experiences involving all senses : visual texture, thermo-tactiles and weight, ... ARTEFACT materials beyond imitation of classic materials.

 

    A circular material concept for polymers,

having a composition area that adds

cold-touch and weight

to bypass the 'natural stone' experience

 

 





  

Phone : 32 (0) 498 91 94 86

 

Email : dominique.maes@alchimia.be

 

VAT BE 0632.853.437

 

LinkedIN

Instagram art demos with Alith



 

I bring know-how and science to turn low-value, complex & coloured waste into new materials that leave behind all associations with recycled plastic; aiming at high-value markets like art, design, interior decoration,  or others that value a full aesthetical sensation.


 

Provided maximum retention of material performances for the circular materials, such as strength, impact resistance, stability against UV, heat and water 'stress' over a longer period of time, etc.

 

Triple Mindset

 Re-appreciating chemical&molecular characteristics of plastic waste

 Recycling "color"

 2D Circular materials space 

 

2D Circular material space : Recipes for a broad range of appications over processing & strength. A materials space where everything can be reused for everything and is therefore 100% circular over a wide range :

- from organic polymers to ceramic-like composites and

- from hand-processable (art media, prototyping) to machine (eg injection molding).

 

Based on intuition in materials science and chemistry, I maximize the re-use of the inherent qualities of the wasted materials. I consider "color" and complexity as an opportunity. I fully appreciate all research that has gone in to chemistry of polymers. Many polymers and engineering materials are high-tech : with special molecular structures and physical properties. 




 

The Know-how offer is twofold :

Apix

Apix consist of encapsulated colored, little domains that add texture to flatt colors. Apix is added to recycled plastics to maximize aesthetic valorization. I offer the Apix masterbatch recipe in a license agreement : to make a texture masterbatch (eventually via contract manufacturing) in a single compounding step. This masterbatch can be added to standard recycling streams to give a mesmerizing chroma-textured look to the final product. , which goes beyond look-imitation of natural materials. In the 2D Circular material space it functions as a permanent ingredient giving it's typical look


you haven't seen 'everything' yet!

 

The 2D Alith space

This material space consist of recycling recipes. The recipes cover conventional reycled PE but also but also compositestone-like materials with full exploitation of all senses : completely leave behind the low-quality association with recycled plastic. At the other hand (the second dimension : processing ) there are the materials that can be shaped manually (art medium), also particularly suitable for prototyping and the more strong&tough recipes for processing with conventional machines : Injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, etc. All objects made within this space are interconvertible, compatible, transferable as they are just one material family. Provided that a small amount of rivatization with an anti-oxidant or a UV stabilizer is applied, the re-cycle can in principle be repeated infinitely.


           material reincarnation



 

'Apix' was chosen as name because the material look is reminiscent of a digital image: with pixels. Apix is a masterbatch with visuable particles of 100 um (variable by process parameters) that are visible to the eye and thus have an almost literal 'eye-catchy' effect.

 

We call the materials of the 2-D circular family “Alith” ; referring to the characteristics of natural stone ( λίθος líthos ).

 

In addition to Apix and Alith , you can also involve me in new business opportunities as long it is about aesthetics, material science and chemistry.