Lightweight Refractory Brick

Natural stone is used in many areas from road construction to the furnishing of residential and commercial buildings. Technical limits are set by high weight resulting from the bulk density as well as physical and chemical properties of the natural stones. Within the framework of a network, a technology was developed for the production of lightweight, large-area natural stone slabs (under 1 cm thickness) combined with suitable carrier materials to form a homogeneous system through innovative joining techniques. With the solution, the material expenditure of the natural stones such as marble and granite can be reduced by approx. 60%.

This network bundled capacities in order to create market-effective, new and innovative technologies striving towards international excellence. The network was the result of a collaboration between several small and medium-sized enterprises and two research partners. The network "Lightweight Refractory Brick" was funded as a Network Management East (NEMO) project under the federal Central Innovation Program for SMEs (ZIM).