Testing on Building Material Using Waste Material in Fired Clay Brick

Clay brick is one of the building materials that have been used in the construction field for thousand years. It has been used as a major construction material because it can tolerate with severe weathering action, flexible properties and it is easy to handle. Many researchers have been incorporated waste material such as organic waste, waste treatment sludge, fly ash, cigarette butts, rice husk and processed waste tea into fired clay brick. This application gives an idea to use waste material that will give a minimum impact to the real environment. In this study, high calorific value waste such as cigarette butts (CBs) were incorporated into fired clay brick. Different percentages of CBs (0%, 2.5% and 5.0%) were added into the raw clay brick. All samples were fired up to 1050°C with different heating rates (1°C/min, 3°C/min and 5°C/min). Properties including compressive strength, dry density, firing shrinkage and water absorption are reported and discussed. The results show that the compressive strength of fired clay brick was obtained with 2.5% CBs of fired clay brick at 1°C/min heating rate compared to others. As for the density, it was reduced with higher percentages of CBs incorporated into the raw clays. From the results, water absorption was slightly increased when CBs were incorporated into clay brick. The results suggested that heating rates at 1oC/min is adequate to achieve optimum properties.