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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Flax As Strong as Kevlar? Wow!

American scientists found a secret recipe (or at least similar to that) of Alexander the Great and other ancient minds!

Mediterannean soldiers didn't wear metal armour - linen is half lighter and better in the heat! And works well too!! (see the Spiegel movie, it's in German but pictures say it all! And you can Google Translate the article - recipe included!:)

Fascinating!!

I am pondering what this could mean for any other uses - in technology, zero waste lifestyle, etc etc?
(Is Kevlar recyclable or compostable?)

More about this in English here, with links to videos too!

3 comments:

  1. I 've got an award for you for bringing a little sunshine into my life.

    http://www.easyecotogo.com/2010/02/let-sunshine-in.html

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  2. Uh, very interesting!
    But can you say what kind of glue sheets of linen are glued with?
    I think a natural glue.
    Sometimes we have to look the ancient cultures to see what they were able to do without oil!
    I studied engineering-polymers at the university and Kevlar (by DuPont) is one of these. They are particular plastic fibres chemically derived from oil so they aren't surely compostable. I fear that they aren't even recyclable, in facts you cannot find any info about this material on their site... mmhhh!

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  3. Thank you for the award, Julia! :)

    Danda, yes, it seems to be a natural glue, cooked from flaxseeds, if I remember it right.
    There's a recipe on the German site, do you want me to translate it? It includes a drop of dishwashing detergent so it can't be completely original!
    There seem to be different 'recipes', some think it might not be glued but sewn together.
    eg it is discussed on this forum: http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=25938&start=200 (a forum for Roman army talk-??!! crazy, I know!)
    Google brings a lot of links if you google 'linothorax recipe' - do you want to make one? :)

    WOW! You studied engineering - polymers! Interesting you can't find the info!
    DuPont is a chemical factory, no? hmm.. Don't they also make lycra etc? Yup, hmm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandex

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