Industrial Ceramics • Vol. 29 • 1/2009 • 1 Classical Ceramics Incorporation of river silt in ceramic tiles and bricks The aim of this work is to evaluate the effects of incorporating river silt originated from washing silica sands extracted in “Ria de Aveiro” as a raw material in the manufacturing process of traditional ceramic building products such as bricks and tiles and on their final properties. The solid river silt waste was physico- chemically characterized for particle size distribution, morphology and XRF. The thermal behaviour was investigated by DTA and TGA analysis, and the mineralogical phases were identified by XRD. Testing bars made of several compositions incorporating amounts in the range of 0 to 10-wt% of river silt and of an industrial standard paste were produced in a pilot-plant extruder, and fired at different temperatures in the range of 950-1100 °C. The characterisation results of sintered specimens (water absorption, linear shrinkage and mechanical bending strength) have shown that products with final properties similar to those obtained from the standard industrial body could be achieved from a composition incorporating up to 5 wt.% of river silt waste. 1. Introduction aste management is a very important issue from the public health perspective and from the environmental and industrial view points, because an ever-increasing amount of inert or hazardous materials need to be disposed in a safe and economical way or, preferably, reused whenever possible. In fact, the main objectives of waste management system are maximizing the economic benefits and, at the same time, protecting the environment. It has been demonstrated that in some successful case studies, these targets could easily be achieved when the search for innovative waste management solutions was suitably conjugated with the needs of preserving natural resources and with the stride of traditional ceramics industries to reduce the production costs 1 . The structural ceramic formulations used to fabricate building construction materials like bricks and roof tiles usually consist of mixtures of plastic and non plastic clays, being characterized by a high heterogeneity in terms of particle size and mineralogical composition, typically including silica and several alumino-silicate phases. These W M ain Author Curriculum P. Torres, R.S. Manjate, H.R. Fernandes, S.M. Olhero, J.M.F. Ferreira Department of Ceramics and Glass Engineering, CICECO, University of Aveiro 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal PH O TO