Investigation of ceramic brick rods with blackened materials inside

In this work the authors have studied the blackened materials inside of the ceramic rods after their sintering in a laboratory chamber kiln. The samples were extruded from conventional brick clays of mined moistures after mixing with additives of sawdust and sunflower husk in 2.91 m% and 3.85 m%. During the investigation they found a considerable influence of vegetable origin additives on chemical, physical and mechanical properties of sintered materials including color, microstructure, mineral and chemical compositions as well as mechanical strength, drying and firing shrinkages. The mineralogical compositions and morphological structures of the "fired out" sawdust and sunflower husks were also determined inside of the blackened parts of specimens. Thanking to the heat generated by fired out vegetable origin additives a remarkable quantity of glass phase components was also formed in the blackened parts of the sintered rods.