Effect of Incorporation of Granite and Marble Rejects in Clay Brick Products: Physico-Mechanical Analysis

The objective of this work is to characterize and evaluate the effect of incorporation of granite and marble rejects on the properties and microstructure development of three different clay materials used to fabricate brick materials in the brick industry. The raw materials are characterized with respect to their chemical composition by X-ray fluorescence, particle size distribution and mineralogical composition by X-ray diffraction and plasticity. Compositions have been prepared with additions of 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 wt% reject in three different clay material from Tamilnadu State, India, and fired at temperatures from 500 to 900 degrees C in laboratory furnace. The behaviour of mixtures containing 80 wt% clay material +20 wt% reject is discussed in detail. The technological properties of briquette specimens such as flexural rupture strength, water absorption, porosity and bulk density were determined. The microstructure of the fired briquette specimens were observed by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, Mossbauer spectroscopy. The results of the above studies show that incorporations of granite and marble rejects up to 50 wt% is potential to the industrial clay brick products, with no major sacrifice on the properties of the final product, anticipating no costly modifications in the industrial production line.