Peat additives in the production of a light brick

The Production of a ceramic product has a thousand-year history. The use of clay for the fabrication of ceramic products was known as far back as deep antiquity, since clay is the most suitable and available material.

In our days a building ceramic brick is the most wide-spread walling material. The Building ceramics occupies one of the leading places in building industry.

The increase of the amount of building objects requires the satisfaction of the quickly rising demand for ceramic brick of high quality.

In this connection the main aim of ceramic production is the increasing of the assortment and quality of a new product.

Great attention is given to the development and usage of highly effective additives. The most popular additives are: quartz sand, shamot, peat, dehydrated clay, wood sawdust, lignin, furnace ash, high plastic clay, surface active materials.

My research is devoted to the production of the light brick using the peat. The aim of the research is getting light brick with density 1.4 g/cm3 and trade-mark 75.

Malo-Stupinskaya clay is used as a source for mixture. The upper peat is used as a burning additive.

The efforts were made using granulate peat. Granules are made according to a special method. In our investigation some compositions with granulate peat were used. The first series of the experiments was made fo the optimization of a composition. We analyzed four compositions: 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% of peat granules in mixture and theirs characteristics such as density, water absorption, flexural strength and porosity. Composition with 10% of peat granules in the mixture shows the best results. That is why we shall rely on it in future experiments.

Consequently the second series of the experiments was made. There were used 5 compositions of mixtures:
We analyzed important characteristics such as density, water absorption, flexural strength and porosity. The experiments show good results.

The use of the clay slurry in the production of the granules results in rising flexural strength. But it allows rising the density as well. That is why, next series of the experiments will consist of mixing without slurry.

And in future we’ll continue this research, making different compositions of the granules.

Muravjova E.