Experimental Studies on Porcelain Brick Preparation Using Lake Bottom Sediments and Coal Fly Ash

The exploitation of lake bottom sediments as raw materials of porcelain brick is believed to be profitable, eliminating the water pollution and reducing the consumption of clays employed in tranditional brick industry. Porcelain bricks were prepared using the bottom sediments from the East Lake in Wuhan and coal fly ash from Huangshi in Hubei as main raw materials, and granitic pegmatite and quartz as additives. Four mix-designs with 40%, 50%, 60% and 70% of the bottom sediments were tested under different sintering temperatures ranging from 1 100 to 1 190 ℃. XRD analysis indicates that the content of mullite in the porcelain bricks increases with the sintering temperature. The water absorption, rupture modulus of all porcelain bricks of the samples sintered at (1 160) and (1 175 ℃) are respectively 0.08%-0.20% and 39.36-(51.08 MPa). The results show the practicability to produce porcelain bricks using lake sediment and coal fly ash with a sum of 75%-80%.