Lego's chemistry?

[ks6349]

I remember someone elsewhere said the composition of Lego brick was changed somehow in early 90s or 80s, I cannot remember the time but the point is, it has some changes, but 

some said no it never. Does anyone know if there was really some changes throughout the decades since Lego was born?

By the way, is there any addictive or other chemicals added to manufacture Lego bricks?

What are they?

Did Lego ever provide such information?

 

 

[deraven]

Most Lego elements are made from ABS, but other plastic types are used for some (like tires, the softer hair of Friends minidolls, etc.), and there have been some chemistry changes over the years. I think it was in the 60s that they moved from cellulose acetate as the primary plastic type for the bricks, but the more recent change to chemistry you might be talking about was removing cadmium (used for color) back in the 80s.  Other than the play value, there is nothing addictive abut them.  I'm not sure what chemicals you may be talking about otherwise; except for pure elements, everything is "chemicals."  

If you just do a quick Google search you can find the information Lego puts out on what is used in making their products and safety statements, etc..  This is a pretty decent, short summary of some changes over the years:  https://www.compoundchem.com/2018/04/09/lego/

[Graupensuppe]

2 hours ago, ks6349 said:

is there any addictive or other chemicals added to manufacture Lego bricks?

Do you mean additive? Though Lego can be pretty addictive indeed

[MAB]

Well they started as wood so there was a fairly big change when moving to the first plastic parts.

There have no doubt been many changes of plastic too. Hands, for example, are different to most other parts, and obviously the softer parts are more rubberised. We think of lego being made from ABS, but that isn't a single formulation, and it is likely that different sources have slightly different compositions. 

[Mylenium]

10 hours ago, ks6349 said:

Did Lego ever provide such information?

Outside generic info that is too obvious to escape public attention like what @deraven linked to I doubt you will ever find exact info on what LEGO actually use. At the very least you will have to do some deep, deep digging on the B2B web sites of BASF, DuPont etc. to find out what their standard products are and what additives are recommended. At the end of the day it's likely that LEGO are using the same stuff that everyone uses and don't have a specific custom ABS mix or anything like that.

Mylenium

[TeriXeri]

While I can't say if it's chemically different, I definately have some more recent parts of those small pine trees, that use a different texture, so it must be that Sugarcane ABS they are using more and more.

[Toastie]

57 minutes ago, TeriXeri said:

Sugarcane ABS

You mean polyethylene (PE), which is made from ethanol, which can be made from sugar cane, right? I've never heard that ABS can be made from sugar cane using a reasonable synthesis pathway.

The trees are not made from ABS. They don't have to, as they are far less stressed than any (ABS) brick is.

Now with regard to texture, I believe this is purposely made during the shape forming process, not during the synthesis of PE. But I may be wrong. If I were them, I'd do it that way, so all folks see that (bio) ethanol was used as ethylene precursor and not steam cracked/refined petroleum

Dehydration of ethanol yields ethylene, which in turn is used for polymerization to PE. When the (bio) ethylene intermediate is carefully cleaned, then there is no difference between (bio) ethylene = C2H4 and ethylene (C2H4). And thus the polymer should be identical, when using identical processes.

Best
Thorsten 

[TeriXeri]

15 minutes ago, Toastie said:

You mean polyethylene (PE), which is made from ethanol, which can be made from sugar cane, right? I've never heard that ABS can be made from sugar cane using a reasonable synthesis pathway.

Yeah, I just meant their "green plant parts not from oil" in recent times.

[ks6349]

16 hours ago, Graupensuppe said:

Do you mean additive? Though Lego can be pretty addictive indeed

Yes additive, wrong spelling 

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Toastie said:

Dehydration of ethanol yields ethylene, which in turn is used for polymerization to PE. When the (bio) ethylene intermediate is carefully cleaned, then there is no difference between (bio) ethylene = C2H4 and ethylene (C2H4). And thus the polymer should be identical, when using identical processes.

Indeed. It will also have a similar lifetime. Often when people see reports that LEGO is trying to move towards sustainable sources and bio-plastics they complain that they want their LEGO to last and not decompose, completely missing this point. When it comes to parts they are going to the source to make it greener but not the end product. Whereas when it comes to (single use) packaging, they are getting rid of plastic in favour of paper and so they are thinking about the end of life but not so much about the source.

[Toastie]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

so they are thinking about the end of life but not so much about the source

Absolutely.

When a material should "last forever" - and I believe this what you are pointing out here and so many folks want - then that material is per definition - "bad", environmentally, in the long run. Simply because when it survives lets say 100 years - and I believe ABS does, maybe a little discoloring but mostly not much (we are almost there: My and your bricks from 50 years ago still do their job), we are not even close to a half life. When we declare 10 half lives being the point that the ABS brick finally degraded (into what?), then we will >accumulate< ABS bricks for more years than the Neanderthals left this world.

You can't get "forever" and "environmentally friendly" into one product or thing, as the latter means "biodegradable" or "recyclable" = bricks disintegrate while you store them, the latter means: Phew - a lot of work, which needs to be ABS specific when you want to make ABS bricks again - in a true TLG cycle industry .

No idea, where TLGs overall environmental impact stands. They do make a lot of non-degradable plastic, but so do other companies as well. Plus: Bricks seem to being used for a very, very long time, whereas flat panels, smart devices required today for operating TLGs PUp stuff, and so many other "polymers" live for years. A few years. A couple.

I believe we are all good. Let TLG do the bio-ethanol and maybe even more ... but we have really other - much bigger - fish to fry.

Best
Thorsten   

[Johnny1360]

Are the bricks technically recyclable, honestly not sure.

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

Are the bricks technically recyclable, honestly not sure.

It depends what you mean by recyclable. You can melt and recast ABS if you sort it very well. It should not contain other plastics, dirt, metal, paper, stickers and of course the colour will be a dirty dark colour due to mixed colours. It is probably not financially viable to sort for recasting. 

[dr_spock]

You could clean them and grind them down.  Then melt and extrude into ABS filament for use on your 3D printer. 

It might be easier to pass the bricks down as family heirloom.

 

[Toastie]

4 hours ago, dr_spock said:

You could clean them and grind them down. 

Here's a paper on that - and also on the properties of repeatedly recycled/extruded ABS: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82756512.pdf - just read the five lines conclusion at the end.

As @MAB said: Colors are a nightmare, as you would have to first separate the bricks into TLG's 5000+ colors - after all the other non-ABS crap has been removed. A washing cycle would be good as well.

(Way far less labor would be to just erratically make the color "All Shades of Gray" and tell the SW folks that a mixed bag of these pieces does provide the ultimate authentic coloring for their MOCs)

It simply will not play out financially, well not before petroleum becomes >really< expensive.

Recycling back to the monomers (i.e. to the potent toxics acrylonitrile, butadiene, and styrene): No. Well. Never say "No"; H2 at insane pressures becomes metallic .

Oh well, chemistry@work. Oops -  that reminds me - tomorrow 10 am "Chemical Reaction Dynamics" - sh*t, I haven't uploaded the slides yet ...

Best
Thorsten 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Toastie
grampa

[MAB]

I doubt LEGO would ever use recycled ABS to make toys. All it takes is a small piece of glass or metal contaminant and a child chewing on a brick and they have a huge legal bill and compensation to pay. 

And just imagine sorting it. To many people, LEGO means just the class of building brick, so they'll chuck in mega construx,  cobi, lepin and so on. They will all have different compositions and dyes, and that's even for the ones made of ABS, so would degrade the recycled product. That's fine if you are making a bucket or cheap consumer item but not something that needs high quality. Even some BL sellers cannot sort out the crap from the LEGO.

[Toastie]

11 minutes ago, MAB said:

I doubt LEGO would ever use recycled ABS to make toys.

I would turn that "doubt" into: "Never ever. Ever."

Best
Thorsten

[Johnny1360]

Yes, I was think other products, than LEGO. As I would imagine it is not feasible.

It would be kind of cool to have a few recycled bricks.

 

[dr_spock]

5 hours ago, Toastie said:

Here's a paper on that - and also on the properties of repeatedly recycled/extruded ABS: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82756512.pdf - just read the five lines conclusion at the end.

As @MAB said: Colors are a nightmare, as you would have to first separate the bricks into TLG's 5000+ colors - after all the other non-ABS crap has been removed. A washing cycle would be good as well.

(Way far less labor would be to just erratically make the color "All Shades of Gray" and tell the SW folks that a mixed bag of these pieces does provide the ultimate authentic coloring for their MOCs)

It simply will not play out financially, well not before petroleum becomes >really< expensive.

Recycling back to the monomers (i.e. to the potent toxics acrylonitrile, butadiene, and styrene): No. Well. Never say "No"; H2 at insane pressures becomes metallic .

Oh well, chemistry@work. Oops -  that reminds me - tomorrow 10 am "Chemical Reaction Dynamics" - sh*t, I haven't uploaded the slides yet ...

Best
Thorsten 

Interesting.  You can probably recycle into the objects that don't need much strength like PU connectors. 

You could make multicolor filament if you rough sort the bricks into batches of the similar color.