Recycling of Ceramic Dust Waste in Ceramic Tiles Manufacture

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This research aims to accomplish improvements in the technical process of the ceramic manufacture of wall and floor tiles, by using the ceramic powder waste produces from the cyclone which follows the spray drier in the manufacturing process of ceramic tiles, so it is the same composition of the manufactured ceramic floor and wall tiles powder, but a finer grade, which results in saving an amount of the raw materials that are used in wall and floor tiles manufacture, and will lower in energy needs, since in the firing process the tiles will be fired at lower firing temperatures than used industrial which are 1050 °C for wall tiles and 1150 °C for floor tiles. Mixtures were prepared by substituting manufacturing powder with the powder waste as 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 wt%; powder is uniaxially pressed at almost 25 MPa yielding in a rectangular-shaped tile with average dimensions of 110 × 55 × 6.8 mm3. The pressed tiles entered a dryer of 70 °C temperature. Tiles are fired at three temperatures, and wall tiles samples are fired at temperatures of 1000, 1050, and 1100 °C, while floor tiles samples are fired at temperatures of 1050, 1100, 1150 °C. After the experimental tests on powders, green and fired tiles, results show that the optimum percentages of wall and floor wastes’ replacement with its firing temperatures of the formed tiles, that could be recycled and satisfied to the international quality standards, are 25% wall powder waste replacement in wall mix with firing temperature of 1000 °C for tiles water absorption (E > 10%), 20% floor powder waste replacement in floor mix with firing temperature of 1050 °C for tiles water absorption (E > 10%), and 40% floor tiles waste replacement in floor mix with firing temperature of 1100 °C for tiles water absorption (6% < E < 10%).