Low Carbon Bricks

In News

• Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), developed low carbon bricks, for energy-efficient walling envelopes.  

About

• Conventionally, building envelopes consist of masonry walls built with burnt clay bricks, concrete blocks, hollow clay blocks, fly ash bricks, lightweight blocks, and so on.

• A building envelope is commonly defined as the separation of the interior and exterior of a building. It helps facilitate climate control and protect the indoor environment.

                                                                                 Image Courtesy :   energyeducation.ca

• The envelopes spend energy during their production, thus incurring carbon emission, and consume mined raw material resources which lead to unsustainable constructions.

Low Carbon bricks: Significance

• Bricks that do not require high-temperature firing, and avoid the use of high-energy materials such as Portland cement.
• uses construction and demolition (C&D) waste and alkali-activated binders
• Energy-efficient
• It solves two purposes, conserving mined raw material resources and emission reduction.

Methodology

•  Low embodied carbon bricks are developed from CDW waste through an alkali activation process using fly ash and ground slag 
• After ascertaining the Physico-chemical and compaction characteristics of the CDW, the optimum mix ratios of the materials were obtained, and then the production process was evolved to produce low-C bricks. Based on the optimum binder proportions, the compressed bricks were manufactured. The bricks were examined for engineering characteristics.

Source: TH