If researchers and engineers from the UK have their way, the
construction world will abandon 5,000 years of clay brick manufacture
- and we´ll all be living in glass houses.
Engineers from technology company Geofusion have turned research
work from Staffordshire University into the first major revolution in
brick manufacture since early potters used clay working skills to
improve mud and straw bricks.
Geofusion - backed by a multi-million pound investment from Credit
Suisse - will have a UK factory within a year, producing bricks made
of recycled glass, including glass waste which is currently expensive
or impossible to recycle, and which ends up in landfill sites
(coloured glass, TV and computer screens in particular).
A further four factories - based in the UK and Europe - are
planned in the first phase of growth and the company plans to license
further manufacturing outside the UK. The technology is being targeted
at developers requiring high levels of renewable materials in their
buildings.
The bricks look just like a conventional brick but involve no
´extractive´ work - so the days of huge unsightly open quarries which
currently provide the millions of tonnes of clay consumed by the
construction industry annually could be limited.
But the technology - which can also be used to make paving stones
and ´slips´ (tiles) - has some hidden secrets: if necessary, the
pavers can be made ´porous´. Water engineers say floods and water
shortages can be caused by urban and commercial developments which
disrupt the flow of rainwater back to the land. Construction engineers
have struggled for years with a variety of solutions - but all have
serious drawbacks. Geofusion´s porous bricks will allow them to
capture the rainwater falling on car-parks and buildings (including
the walls), and reuse it.
The company says the glass-based pavers can be recycled several
times, meaning they could be used to create the world´s first totally
recyclable building. They can be made with greater precision than
traditional baked bricks, and quantities and costs can be controlled
more easily. They can be colour matched precisely, and the
manufacturing process uses considerably less energy.
Geofusion´s website is at www.geo-fusion.co.uk.
Press information and pictures (extensive selection) available.
