Abstract

LUJAN, Marcos  and  GUZMAN, Daniel. Design, Construction and Evaluation of a furnace (MK3) for firing craft bricks. RevActaNova. [online]. 2015, vol.7, n.2, pp.165-193. ISSN 1683-0789.

Artisanal brick producers in Bolivia and throughout the South American region, represent an important economic sector for construction activity and involves a significant population engaged in this activity. Unfortunately, artisanal producers use kilns for burning bricks that are very inefficient (consume 4 to 6 MJ / kg of fired brick) and generate strong emissions of air pollutants, mainly CO and particulate matter. These emissions affect seriously air quality in peri-urban areas where this activity is regularly installed. In response to this problem we developed, built and tested a kiln, MK type, which uses natural gas as the only fuel and works with three modules. These modules are alternated to run on as: burning furnace, furnace filtration / recovery and furnace loading and unloading in the burning operation, a system downdraft controlled by a fan is used, the hot gases from burning furnace pass through the recovery furnace so as to recover some of the heat energy and filter emissions. In this way the energy consumption is reduced by 48% and a significant reduction in pollutant emissions is also achieved, especially in terms of CO and particulate matter. The main disadvantage of the developed furnace is the difficulty in achieving a high proportion of high quality bricks, due to poor vertical distribution of temperature inside the oven. This new furnace was called MK3 because of the three modules with which it operates.

Keywords : artisan brick kiln; air pollution; emission factors; MK3.

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