Discover China's super-durable sticky rice mortar

Scientists have discovered the secret behind the durable mortar made from ancient Chinese sticky rice, the material for them to build buildings into sustainable time and natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Glutinous rice mortar is plastered and filled with holes between bricks, stone blocks and many other construction materials, which is a masterpiece of ancient Chinese, helping to preserve the construction works well.

According to Dr. Bingjian Zhang, ancient Chinese builders developed mortar with sticky rice 1,500 years ago. They made it by mixing well-cooked sticky rice with some basic mortar ingredients like lime lime, calcined lime at high temperature and mixed with water.

According to Zhang, this mortar is the world's first construction product by a composite model, including organic and inorganic materials.

The citadel is built from special mortars that are resistant to earthquakes.

This mortar is strong and has much higher durability than pure lime mortar. Dr. Zhang also said that this material could be one of the biggest technological innovations of the era as well as the ancient Chinese people, on par with the invention of gunpowder, compass or paper.

Construction workers used it to create important buildings such as tombs, pagodas and city walls that still exist today. Many buildings can be affected by modern bulldozers and strong earthquakes.

Scientists have identified a special type of amylopectin, a group of poly saccharides-a complex carbohydrate in rice and other essential food. This is the secret component of sticky rice mortar, creating its "legendary" power.

Dr. Zhang said: 'The combination of normal sticky rice and lime is really a great composite material, the addition of both organic and inorganic matter. Furthermore, we found that amylopectin also acts as an inhibitor. It helps control the development of calcium carbonate crystals. From there, producing sustainable microstructure, helps mortar with such good characteristics'.

The secret ingredient of sticky rice is amylopectin.

To determine whether sticky rice can help with home repair, scientists prepare lime mortar with different main sticky rice content. The experiment aims to test the ability of composite mortar with traditional mortar.

As a result, sticky rice mortar has many sustainable physical properties, creating better structural strength. It really is the great invention of ancient Chinese people.

Source: Physorg