New Materials in the Production of Moulding and Core Sands

The article shows the influence of environment requirements on changes in different foundry moulding sands technologies such as cold box, self-hardening moulding sands and green sands. The aim of the article is to show the possibility of using the biodegradable materials as binders (or parts of binders' compositions) for foundry moulding and core sands. The authors concentrated on the possibility of preparing new binders consisting of typical synthetic resins - commonly used in foundry practice - and biodegradable materials. According to own research it is presumed that using biodegradable materials as a part of new binders' compositions may cause not only lower toxicity and better ability to reclaim, but may also accelerate the biodegradation rate of used binders. What's more, using some kinds of biodegradable materials may improve flexibility of moulding sands with polymeric binder. The conducted research was introductory and took into account bending strength and thermal properties of furan moulding sands with biodegradable material (PCL). The research proved that new biodegradable additive did not decrease the tested properties.