Ceramic clay brick making project from Ukraine, using vacuum extrusion or semi-dry pressing methods of production, to manufacture 30,000 to 2,00,000 red bricks per day
The clay brick has been regarded as one of the longest lasting & strongest building materials used throughout the history. In India, brick making is a traditional, unorganized industry, and generally confined to rural & semi-urban areas.
In the developed world, clay bricks are formed either by extruding the mud in a die and then wire-cutting to the desired size; or by dry-pressing the same. The shaped clay is subsequently dried and fired by burning in a kiln to achieve the required strength. The action of heat gives rise to a sintering process that causes the clay particles to fuse and develop extremely strong ceramic bonds in the burnt clay bodies.
GoodRich offers ceramic clay brick making plants from Ukraine, in the following capacities –
- Automatic plants to make 1,00,000 bricks per day, using vacuum extrusion forming & tunnel kiln firing process (investment Rs. 25 crores);
- Semi- automatic plants to make 30,000 bricks per day, using vacuum extrusion forming & tunnel kiln firing process (investment Rs. 8crores);
- Semi-automatic plants to make 1,00,000 bricks per day, using dry-pressing and tunnel kiln firing process (investment Rs. 25 crores); &
- Semi-automatic plants to make 30,000 bricks per day, using dry-pressing and tunnel kiln firing process (investment Rs. 9 crores).
All the above plants use a unique inner combustion technology, where the clay is mixed with a small quantity of coal / carbon bearing materials, so that 85-90% of the energy is supplied from inside the brick. This arrangement will reduce the total energy requirement by nearly a half.
While the vacuum extrusion needs good quality clay with a plasticity index from 12-18%, dry-pressing can accept low quality clay with a plasticity index of 7-12%. Carbon containing industrial wastes such as half-burnt coal, shale (coal stone), ESP dust, fly ash with un-burnt carbon, mining dumps, tailings from iron ore beneficiation plants, blast furnace dust, etc., can be added with the clay up to 50% in the dry-pressing method.
Both the technologies can make either solid bricks or perforated bricks, in various sizes. The pay-back period on the entire investment is 2-3 years.
Indian brick industry is highly unorganized with 100,000 brick-fields making 14,000 crore bricks per year and employing 80-100 million seasonal labourers. The quality is poor with large variations in size, low strength and high water absorption. The handmade brick industry has become uneconomical now, due to high cost of production and shortage of seasonal labour.
Building construction in India is estimated to grow from 8 billion square metres in 2005 to 41 billion square metres in 2030. More than 70% of the infrastructure needed for a developed India is yet to be built, as per the McKinssy Report, 2009.
While China has 5,000 automatic clay brick plants; CIS countries have more than 1,400 plants and even Vietnam has 400 plants, India is the only developing country in the world that produces bricks by hand. Hence, there is a potential to establish at least 1,000 automatic clay brick making plants in India, over a period of next 10 years.
The brick business cannot continue ‘as usual’ now. A structural change will occur in India & following are the 5 most likely reasons for the changes ahead –
- Rapid urbanization, demanding for better quality.
- Regulation of building standards on energy consumption, which favours the use of energy- efficient and ‘green’ clay bricks in place of cement bricks.
- Supply constraints of cheap, seasonal labour.
- Importance of quality assurance and willingness of the consumers to pay a higher price for branding.
- Environmental regulations on earth-quarrying, ban on the usage of agriculture soil and strict emission control measures will lead to the closure of small brick units, paving the way for new, mechanized clay brick plants.
Thus, the mechanized ceramic clay brick project provides a safe investment opportunity, with a proven technology for mass production of a highly demanded product.
