Modeling environmental impact of unfired bricks in India

Brick manufacturing requires a considerable amount of energy and land, but these numbers have been difficult to quantify in rural parts of the developing world. The environmental impact of unfired bricks in India is investigated through modeling the effects of materials composition and processing on energy consumption, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, and land surface area use. The analysis uses a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment to quantitatively estimate these impacts. The depth of soil extraction has a significantly affects the land use required for bricks; changing this depth in practice or through regulation has the potential to reduce environmental impact without affecting brick performance. The impact of unfired bricks depends greatly on composition, in particular the amount and type of stabilizer and the incorporation of fly ash. While stabilizers increase the environmental burden, the performance gain is potentially worth these effects when compared to energy intensive fired bricks. Future work could expand the model to quantify the relevant cost and performance tradeoffs with environmental impact.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Zachau Walker, Miriam E. (Miriam Elizabeth)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Joel P. Clark.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/80906

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/80906