Towards More Sustainable Materials for Geo-Environmental Engineering: The Case of Geogrids

Plastic materials are widely used in geotechnical engineering, especially as geosynthetics. The use of plastic-based products involves serious environmental risks caused by their degradation. Innovative research has been focusing on biodegradable polymers natural origin, poly(lactic acid) (PLA), to reduce the plastics. This study aims explore potentiality biopolymers for production geogrids, measuring chemical and mechanical characteristics raw prototype samples, similar those available market. First, composition optical purity were determined hydrogen nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) polarimetry. Furthermore, samples uniaxial biaxial geogrids custom-molded using a professional 3D printer. Mechanical properties measured both filament geogrids. maximum tensile resistance was 6.76 kN/m neat-PLA 10.14 produced with PLA-based polymer mixed titanium dioxide. showed higher than polypropylene (PP), most common petroleum derivative. Conversely, such biomaterials seem be more brittle scarce elongation rate respect PP. Nonetheless, these results encouraging can support innovative geosynthetics production, if combination live plants.