The average rates of disqualified products in a typical ceramic factory in China ranged from 2 to 8 percent, and most of the disqualified products were discarded as ceramic wastes. These ceramic wastes either became solid wastes or were not fully re-utilized or recycled. In this study, innovative green materials and techniques were adopted to make water permeable ceramic tiles (WPCT) from discarded ceramic wastes for city sidewalks. Systematic testing of the formulation resulted in a special high temperature binder consisted of finely ground sanitary ceramic wastes, quartz, alumina, calcium sulfate, kaolinite, and sodium feldspars. Cooked rice flour pastes and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) were utilized as the aids for molding. The WPCT was mainly made of discarded sanitary ceramic wastes and daily-use ceramic wastes at a ratio of 3 to 1 and in proportional fractions of granular sizes. Dry rice husks and powders of lime stone as the pore-forming materials, along with the special high temperature binder were added to the adobes to be formed when pressurized at 1 MPa. The sintering temperature was programmed to allow the formation of pores resulted from the burning of carbon from the rice husks and decomposition of calcium carbonate from the lime stone. Numerous tests demonstrated that best sintering temperature for the WPCT was 1250 degrees Celsius. It was found that the composition of the adobes had profound effects on the strength and porosity of the WPCT, while the effects of CMC were insignificant. Lime stone was optional if rice husks were available and the required mechanical strength was not too demanding. The mechanical strength of the WPCT was in reverse proportional to its porous spaces, best strength was found when the water holding capacity of the WPCT was about 22%.

Making water permeable ceramic tiles from wasted ceramics

256th National Meeting (2018)

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