KVARIT

Expanded clay concrete building blocks, effective and comfortable building materials, are highly valued in construction and successfully compete in the market in terms of strength and thermal properties with materials such as brick and foam concrete blocks. But the main components of the product - expanded clay and cement produced in tube kilns (photo 1) - have a very negative impact on the external environment.

Expanded clay production technology in Russia lags so far behind the not entirely ideal European technology that it was even removed from the directory of best available BAT technologies, despite the participation of three industry representatives in the commission approving the directory.

Despite the advantages of expanded clay concrete blocks, the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology and the Research Institute of Concrete Concrete in Moscow conducted research to create an alternative in the form of ceramic foam products. NIIZHB in Moscow was able to conduct full-scale studies of ceramic foam products on the basic construction and technical properties and deformation-strength properties with similar lightweight concrete (Table 5.11, Table 5.5).

But the production of products was carried out using a technology that precluded its industrial use, as a result of which the building material did not receive the appropriate assessment.

We, regardless of previous information, conducted research on the production of ceramic foam products in electric furnaces from clay shale capable of swelling. As a result, the concept of a carbon-free method of resource-saving, energy-efficient, sustainable technology for producing ceramic foam products was developed (infogram 1). 

According to our assumptions, the EP2738149A1 (goo.gl/EwxqS2) method will make it possible to produce up to 50,000 cubic meters of ceramic foam blocks, which is equivalent to 20 million bricks.

To produce one cubic meter of expanded clay concrete block, about 200 kg of cement is required, that is, cement consumption in the production of ceramic foam blocks will be reduced to 10,000 tons. In addition, to prepare ceramic foam blocks you will not need water in an amount of about 10,000 cubic meters.

Production of 50,000 cubic meters of foam ceramic blocks will reduce 9,000 tons of CO2

The ceramic foam in these products is synthetic tuff and can act as synthetic lungs in building walls, breathing and filtering VOCs  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0748233711422727