Development of porous fired clay bricks with bio-based additives: Study of the environmental impacts by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

The incorporation of bio-based pore-forming agents, from either agricultural (wheat straw - WS and olive stone flour - OSF) or chemical (glycerol carbonate - GC and dimethyl carbonate - DMC) origins, into clay formulations, has been investigated. Fire clay porous tablets have been manufactured at laboratory scale and characterized through physical, mechanical and thermal properties. An increase of 7.2% of the porosity correlated to-a decrease of 7.0% of the thermal conductivity was measured for the best samples. The environmental impacts of these formulations have also been examined through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using the ReCiPe v1.10 method. It was noticed that the incorporation of pore forming agents led a decrease of about 15-20% of all the studied impact categories. The advantage of the use of bio-based additives in clay bricks was then confirmed from both performance (lighter material with a better thermal insulation) and environmental points of view. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.