Gravel Mud As Building Ceramic Raw Material

Building ceramic products as clay bricks, roofing tiles, wall and floor tiles, are silicate-based materials made up of phyllosilicates, quartz and feldspars. A chance for reducing the production costs is offered by the possibility to use urban and industrial wastes. In fact, there is a great quantity of by-products used nowadays as common additives in the composition of this ceramic products as plasticity modifiers, energy suppliers or fluxing wastes [1,2]. They are commonly added in quantities ranging from 5-15 mass-%, and sometimes up to 60 mass-% [3,4]. Nevertheless, there are industrial and mining wastes with special characteristics, and ceramic bodies can be made from them, as 100 mass-% [5]. The aim of this research is the study of fluvial sand and gravel washing wastes characteristics, determining the main properties on unfired and fired bodies consisting entirely of these residues. For this purpose, six waste mixtures were used in laboratory simulations, shaped by pressing or extrusion.