Slu-brick – An innovative sustainable solution for solid waste management

Abstract

Abstract The population of Indian cities is increasing exponentially, which results in the use of more resources and on the other side, the generation of waste will also increase. The most commonly used masonry unit of a building material is brick. To overcome this issue of resource utilization and waste generation, civil engineers have been facing challenges to find a better solution. Research was carried out to obtain a useful construction and building material in the form of slu-brick from solid waste (sludge). Improper disposal of domestic sludge causes harmful effects on the environment that poses a major problem in urban cities. This study focuses on the use of sludge in production of brick since the chemical composition of sludge is similar to that of clay. Different series of sludge and various ingredients mixture proportions were studied where in varying sludge ratios starting from 5% to 30% of the total weight of mixture was added. Various physical test were carried out such as specific gravity, compressive strength, water absorption, fineness test as well as an environmental test were also conducted such as total coliform and E-Coli content. While testing various parameters it has been observed that slu-brick is good enough to use as construction materials compared to conventional brick as its strength is similar to the conventional brick when the sludge content is 30%. It was observed that good quality slu-brick can be produced up to 30% utilization of sludge in brick making. This study confirms that the waste sludge can act as a suitable material in the manufacture of slu-brick with proportionate mix and design. Thus to an extent clay can be replaced with sludge in the brick manufacturing, which helps in the conservation of naturally available resources and improves the environmental quality.