Utilization of some ceramic industrial wastes for making clay-building bricks

Abstract EN

The clay deposits at Kom Osheem area, Fayoum Governorate, Egypt, were previously investigated.

These clays are silty to silty mud with a mineralogical composition of montmorillonite, montmorillonite-illite, kaolinite and iolite clay minerals in addition to, quartz, feldspar and calcite as the non-clay minerals.

Chemically, these clays contain low Al2O3, high SiO2 and low soluble salts.

The ceramic properties of Kom Osheem clays show that they are highly plastic and very sensitive upon drying.

Ceramic tiles industry produces a lot of wastes such as ceramic sludge, broken under quality tiles and the accumulated dust.

These wastes comprise a great pollution problem on the surrounded environment.

In this work each of 15,25 and 50 % ceramic sludge additives were mixed with the studied clayey raw material for making building bricks.

The mix contains 15 % sludge and 85 % clay shows a lower plasticity coefficient and an insensitive behavior upon drying in addition to suitable physico-mechanical properties for the fired clay articles.

This suggested mix was applied within a common brick fabric in Fayoum Governorate for studying the possibility of its industrial application.