JNARDDC Nagpur develops bricks from red mud

If the city-based Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminium Research Design and Development Centre (JNARDDC) has its way, 'red mud', a waste generated in huge quantity (one to two times of alumina produced) from the aluminium industry, can now act as a good source of building material. In fact, Modi government's ambitious plan of 'home for every family' by 2022 which includes 2 crore houses in urban area and 4.5 crore in rural, could use these materials if JNARDDC can convince their utility to the government.

JNARDDC had developed two different types of bricks (hard brick and foam brick) and a special kind of ceramic tile removing all the hazardous waste properties of the red mud under a Asia Pacific technology Development Project for Clean Climate (AP-7) in 2010-11.

But the important achievement of the Centre remained as a research product until the Centre's director Anupam Agnihotri recently met the director of the Building Material Technology Promotion Council (BMPTC) under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and made a presentation to him. Impressed by the development, BMPTC director Shailesh Agrawal shared this information with the ministry's secretary.

"When I met the secretary recently in a conference at Delhi and told her about the bricks and their properties, she showed keen interest. As a government institution, I am trying to my best to see that the technology could be converted into mass production process and used by the government for meeting its ambitious scheme of home for everyone," Agnihotri told Times of India.

The biggest achievement of JNARDDC in developing these three products is that though red mud is a hazardous waste, these products are not. And interestingly, India happens to be the only country which has developed this technology as a part of AP-7 as different countries were given different projects.

Agnihotri said that in a way India was lucky to have got this project as it may not have been equally successful a product in other countries as Indian bauxite (the ore from which alumina is produced to later convert it into aluminium metal) is qualitatively better than other bauxite ores in the world. "The same technique may not produce same products elsewhere," he said.

The project, sponsored by the union Ministry of Mines and the National Aluminium Company (NALCO) to about 2.5 to 3 crore, has also come as a big solution to the aluminium industry for waste disposal. Red mud is stored in huge ponds covering a large area. Thus utilization of the waste will save land as well as minimize pollution. Annually, the country generates 47 lakh tonnes of red mud. "Otherwise also, the country doesn't have enough earth to make conventional bricks for 6.5 crore houses," said Agnihotri asserting the utility of JNARDDC's products. Talking about the foam or light weight bricks, he said that if they are covered with polythene, they float in water and a 'Ram Setu' could be made, he remarked.