Research in improving fired clay bricks
In the small town of Chambo, 220 km south from Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, the Cuban consultant of the EcoSur Network, Arch. Dania Betancourt is working in a research concerning adding of catalyzers in the earth and water mixture that is the raw material for fired clay bricks. This research is aimed to reduce the burning time and at the same time, improve the strength of the bricks.
The town of Chambo produces almost all the bricks used in the region, in open top artisanals kilns that consumes big quantities of wood.
This consultancy from Arch. Betancourt, that includes 15,000 catalyzer-added bricks, shows very promising results.
When all the data collected has been processed, the adding of catalyzers will be implemented in the over 200 brick kilns in the area, reducing the deforestation rate in a great way, due to the reduction of wood consumption.
Arch. Betancourt is a teacher of UCLV in Santa Clara, Cuba, and this research is part of hers pre-PhD work.
