UTILIZATION OF LOCAL SHALES IN THE PRODUCTION OFCERAMIC TILES AT SORNAGA PLANT (BAHARIYA SHALES)

Abstract

Traditional ceramic industry in Egypt as practiced by Soumaga Co. for engineering ceramics and refractories, consists mainly of working and firing of clayey materials .These materials are ball clay and Aswan clay. Other clays such as Beleida and Malkata are also used. Feldspars and Sands are being used as fluxing agent and filler. Another branch of the traditional ceramic industry in Egypt is that which use clays without additives to produce engineering ceramic materials such as bricks, tiles, pipes, sanitary wares and floor tiles. No doubt that there is now a wide spectrum of application in Egypt in which ceramics are used under conditions that need quality control measures of the products. Moreover costs of production start to have serious impacts on both product quality and production quantity. These impacts are obvious in Sournaga Co. and search for other local raw materials which could benefit the economics of production of some engineering ceramic types at Sournaga plant with suitable specifications is a necessity. Most of Soumaga clays are brought down from Aswan and two other near places called Malkata and Bleida. The clays are named with the names of its origin. The clays trip from Aswan down to Mustorod plant increases the cost of the products. Use of other nearby shales which meets the production requirements will be of great help in lowering the costs. Thus present work has been planned to investigate the suitability of selected shale occurrences for use in Soumaga plant for tile production. Work has been focused on EI-Bahariya shale deposits because of its potentialities. Shale deposit of El-Bahariya oasis (350 Km. south 45 west from Cairo), constitutes the overburden material of the iron ore mine at El Gidida area. Preliminary published studies reported the existence of potentialities of these clays for ceramic industries. Use of these clays as substitution entirely or partially, for those of Aswan clays will have clear impacts on the production costs. Transportation of such clay could be solved by using one or more carriages of the train connecting between the mine and steel factory at Helwan, which is a cheap method of transportation. Analysis of reported studies raised several questions about the parameters that should be in mined while studying ceramic local raw materials, these are; l. Evaluation ofEI-Bahariya shales reserves (El Gidida area). 2. Studying the main parameters influencing production efficiency. 3. A group of laboratory work to reach the optimum mix which suits the production line. 4. Application of the laboratory results in production line. A primary detection of the investigated clay behavior to produce ceramics has been achieved by a group of different analyses such as the grain size distribution, X-ray diffraction, oxides and soluble salts content and rheological experimentation. This group of analysis in its total gives a proper characterization of El Bahariya clay.