Supervisor: Christian Lengauer in cooperation with Wienerberger AG 

Funding Situation: supervisor has secured funding

Project outline: The proposed project deals with a study of new sintering reactions during the firing process of coarse pottery clays. The aim is to identify chemical solid-solid-reactions which enable a significant reduction of currently applied firing temperatures at T > 800 °C and, therefore, approach significant reduction of CO2 emissions during the firing process of ceramic blocks. For most of utilized clays a pyrolytic de-carbonation of carbonate components is the main cause of process CO2 emissions. These disintegrative reactions start at temperatures above 650 °C. Consequently, a fundamental new approach is necessary to achieve such preferred modifications of the sintering process within the given thermodynamic environment, and with the objective of keeping physico-technical parameters of the fired products as comparable as possible.