Waste Management in Magnesite Mines in Turkey

Brick is a building material obtained by mixing clay, earth, or similar materials with water, shaping them, drying them, and usually firing them in a kiln. Today, it is used in reinforced concrete structures for many purposes, such as infill, walls, and cladding, in addition to the load-bearing system. The first bricks were unfired adobe (sun-dried clay blocks), but later they began to fire bricks in kilns to make them more durable. This made the material more resistant to water and time. Industrial bricks fired at high temperatures are widely used in interior and exterior walls, chimneys and furnaces, and aesthetic cladding. Fire bricks, a special type of brick (resistant to high temperatures), are a refractory material and are widely used, especially in the steel, glass, and cement industries. Magnesite fire bricks, which are basic fire bricks based on their content, are the basic material of basic refractories. The recovery of magnesite-based firebricks is more difficult than that of alumina or silica-based bricks. The main reasons for this are that MgO is a highly basic material and therefore reacts strongly with slag during use. Consequently, end-of-life bricks are heavily contaminated with foreign oxides. It becomes difficult to separate pure MgO.