Engineers are employing a new BASF AG polyurethane resin to help brace coastal defenses against potentially disastrous sea level rises as a result of global warming.
In the first commercial test for Elastocoast, researchers mixed 50,706 pounds of the elastomeric PU material with crushed rock to form an open-cell composite breakwater covering more than 32,000 square feet of seashore on Hallig GrÃ¶de Island, off Germany's North Sea coast.
Engineers have tested the material since 2004 in pilot projects for sea defense along the northern German coast, where serious land erosion occurs. It is also being tested in the Netherlands, where 60 percent of the land is well below sea level.
BASF's LemfÃ¶rde, Germany-based subsidiary Elastogran GmbH, which developed the PU system, already is collaborating with public authorities in the Netherlands and with military engineers in the United States, according to Marcus Leberfinger, head of new business development for Elastocoast and maritime projects.
Officials see the Netherlands as having huge potential for the product because of the country's expertise in coastal defenses and hydraulic engineering.
Elastrogran is working closely in North America with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers laboratories in Vicksburg, Miss., including its coastal and hydraulics facility there.
``These institutions are also responsible for the design and reconstruction of coastline protection in New Orleans,'' Leberfinger said.
``This intensified collaboration ... should serve as the starting point for the global marketing of the innovative technology based on in early July,'' he said at BASF's pre-K show news conference, held in early July in Frankenthal.
Elastocoast is a low-cost, flexible alternative to conventional sea defenses that comprise rigid concrete and bitumen systems. Unlike these rigid structures, which can rupture under powerful wave impact, the new breakwaters, formed by rocks bonded to one another only at certain points by plastic resin, absorb wave energy, reducing the size of the rebound wave, according to Leberfinger.
Elastocoat is resistant to saltwater, weathering, heat and frost, and is undamaged by marine oil spills, according to Leberfinger. The material is 60 percent comprised of renewable plant-derived polyols and offers shelter and ``living space'' to marine flora and fauna, he said.
BASF says the PU system is easy to process.
Two liquid PU components are stirred together and mixed with the broken rock, creating a thin, transparent filmlike substance. The mixture is spread in a layer roughly 6-12 inches thick, which starts to harden in just 20 minutes and is solid within two days.
Ludwigshafen, Germany-based BASF sees Elastocoast being applied in port installations, flood tide barriers, shore promenades and inland waterways and is even studying possible uses for cliff and mountain erosion.