Production of eco-friendly fired brick utilizing partially replacement of the clay soil with recycled and available materials

This research aimed to investigate the feasibility of conserving the clay soil resources exhausted in brick production in an attempt to achieve one of the strategic sustainable development goals related to protection of fertile soils. The research inspected the influence of replacing part of the clay soil with some recycled and available cheap materials, on the mechanical and physical properties of the fired clay bricks. Fine sand, grinded construction waste materials and grinded limestone, were utilized in this research as the replacing materials. The results showed that the soil used for production of bricks in the studied local factory region was characterized by containing a very low sand content, not exceeding (3%). The research results showed that the replacement of different portions (5, 10, 20, and 30%) of the soil with fine sand caused an increase in the density of clay specimens. It had been proved that different mixes, implemented in this research could be employed to produce fired bricks complying with the requirements of class B, and class C of Iraqi specification IQS 25-1988. Class B fired clay brick could be produced using the soil in which 5, or 30% of its constituents, was replaced with fine sand. Superior efflorescence results were attained for soil including more than 5% fine sand, beside the case of the soil containing (5-20%) grinded limestone or grinded construction materials waste. Utilizing grinded limestone to replace more than 10% of the soil resulted in a decrease, reached 12 % in the density of the bricks. The research findings are of great importance from the environmental and economical points of view. The results confirmed the possibility of successfully substituting considerable part of the clay soil used in production of fired clay bricks by some available replacing materials. Improvement of the quality of the bricks beside the friendship with the environment, via the disposal of construction waste were also verified.