Fireballs
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Algae Binder
First the material was ball milled (rock & roll) to mix the algae evenly with the sawdust, this also reduced the retted cattails and may aid hydrogen bonding.
The above sprayer was used to add the extra water needed. Great improvement over pouring water into the mixture.
After spraying the proper amount of water on the mixture the agglomerations start to form hence fireballs.
Above are the green (un-cured) fireballs.
Not all the particles agglomerated. There was some larger cattail, pine needles, bark and sawdust stock that did not agglomerate. If the rock & roll time or amount of algae was increased it may be possible that this would have been avoided.
One of the fireballs was separated from the herd and left to dry one day outside. There was some surface shedding.
Next the drop test was performed. A white paper was placed on a cement floor and the fireball was dropped a distance of six feet onto the paper/floor. Small amount of shedding as can be seen in the above picture. The fireball bounced about six inches and there was no damage observed.
The un-agglomerated material is on the bottom of the bucket and the fireballs are placed on top hence the fireballs are ABOUT one-half the volume.
There is some question if this binder is a true algae, I have no way to verify this. I guess it's still just pond scum.
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