Salem Sona college students make poly bricks out of PPE waste

A team of five students from the Sona College of Technology in Salem have won accolades at the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Smart India Hackathon for devising a method to convert personal protective equipment (PPE) waste into poly bricks.

A team of five students from the Sona College of Technology in Salem have won accolades at the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Smart India Hackathon for devising a method to convert personal protective equipment (PPE) waste into poly bricks.

The students — Aravind Kumar, J.B. Kamalesh, U. Dharani Raj, P. Adhavan and E.K. Harshini from the Department of Civil Engineering — showcased a working model for poly bricks production at the Hackathon held in Jaipur recently and won a cash purse of ₹ 1 lakh.

The students claimed that the poly brick was lighter, had threefold higher compressive strength compared to common red brick and was cheaper.

According to N. Karuppasamy, assistant professor, Department of Civil Engineering, the poly brick making process starts by sterilizing PPE kits with ultraviolet rays, subjecting them to heat at 160 degrees centigrade, adding sand aggregates, and casting the polypropylene mass into bricks. A patent application has been filed for the technology.

The poly bricks were eco-friendly and cause minimal emissions in the process as the PPE plastic waste is subjected to less than 200 degrees centigrade. The added advantage of poly brick production is the total elimination of cement, which is typically used in the manufacture of hollow concrete bricks, Mr. Karuppasamy said.

The Vice-Chairman of the Sona Group of Institutions, Chocko Valliappa, said the technology owed its genesis to the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping in mind the additional PPE waste generated, which was almost 56,000 tonnes in one year, as per data from the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, Government of India. This was in addition to the PPE waste that hospitals and healthcare providers generated as part of their regular operations. These eco-friendly bricks can be used as regular bricks for walls, as well as paver blocks. The poly bricks have good cement adhesion and can be plastered with cement, Mr. Valliappa added.