Study of the incorporation of two types of wastes and their combined effects into red ceramics

Abstract

As the population continues to grow, the consumption of natural resources for use as primary materials in civil construction also increases. In addressing the need to reduce the depletion of natural resources, a viable alternative for the production of civil construction materials involves substituting a portion of these raw materials with waste materials. This approach seeks to achieve two key objectives: the promotion of waste reuse and a reduction in the consumption of natural resources. Amongst these materials, red ceramics is one of the categories of civil construction materials that allow the incorporation of waste, since its raw material, ceramic clay, is intrinsically heterogeneous, which makes the final product capable of containing a certain number of foreign materials. Wastes to be added in ceramic masses are classified, among others, into fuel and flux wastes, and both affect the ceramic firing stage in a different way. Flux wastes facilitate the liquid phase formation and fuel wastes release heat for the process. Thus, this work's main purpose was to study the mechanical behavior of red ceramics incorporated with a mixture of fuel and flux wastes, as well as the incorporation of both separately. The ceramic bodies were prepared in 7 different compositions by uniaxial pressing and were fired at 850 °C and 1050 °C. Then, their technological properties were determined to study the combined effect of adding two different types of waste at the same time. Subsequently, their technological characteristics were assessed to investigate the synergistic impact of simultaneously introducing two distinct waste materials. This study unveiled that the drawbacks associated with the inclusion of fuel waste can be mitigated by incorporating flux waste. This has the potential to enhance the sustainability of the red ceramics industry by yielding a material with properties akin to commercial products while also valorizing two waste streams that would otherwise be wrongly disposed of.