Environmental research

Burnt clay brick is one of 8 keys conventional building material which has an important position in the eight basic building materials. The rapid economic growth makes the construction need increase fast consequently the increasing need for burnt clay bricks. Particularly, the implementation of the programmes on making irrigation canals strong in the agricultural production areas requires a lot of burnt clay bricks. In Viet Nam, bricks made by the non-state sector are mainly from small traditional brick kilns, which consist of about 70 percent of the bricks produced and used in the market. Particularly, the implementation of the irrigation progrm requires a very big need. An estimated about 7,000-10,000 traditional brick-kilns are in operations in the whole country with different types and capacities. The brick-kilns have met most of the need by providing quality bricks with low prices of half of those produced by tunnel kilns. At the same time they can be built in the areas where raw material is limited or near the small consuming places to reduce the transportation costs. However, the brick production of traditional brick-kilns cause severe environmental pollution, resulting in social disorders in some areas as publicised in mass media in recent years. The project entitled Developing demonstration models of vertical shaft brick-kiln VSBK was implemented during the years 2002 and 2003 aiming to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emission in the brick production by experimenting demonstration models of VSBK. The project results show that VSBK is one of the appropriate technologies to replace traditional brick-kilns and it has attracted particular interest from many local governments, relevant authorities and especially brick-kiln owners, and has been expanded/replicated in many provinces. However, due to the budget limitation and time constraint, the tested model has still showed its given limitations. In order to disseminate the VSBK model in other regions of the whole country, the project Contributing to greenhouse gas emission and sustainable brick production through development of mechanisms to replicate VSBK technology will conduct the following key activities: 1. Improving the firing technology to reduce the fuel consumption in the brick firing stage; based on the results of the demonstration models, standardizing the VSBK model (documents on design, instalation, calculation of material and energy balance) with the small capacity ranges (3.6-4 millions bricks/year) and the medium capacity ranges (7-10 millions bricks/year); and improving the management, operation and maintanance processes. 2. Reducing manual nature of the kilns and increasing competitive chances of the products on the market: Merchanizing the burnt clay brick production line Experimenting the higher capacity kilns (7-11 millions bricks/year) Experimenting and diversifying products, brick designs which are suitable for local markets Increasing the product quality and reducing the waste brick rate [or quantity of broken finnished products]. 3. Developing procedures for disseminating the VSBK model. Studying and suggesting policies for the VSBK techonology application and development, contributing to the implementation of the Prime Minister s Decision on the abolishment of tradditional brick-kilns; developing regulations and plans for burnt clay brick production using the VSBK techonology Training and transfering the techology.

Vietnam