Technology, exploitation and consumption of natural resources of traditional brick productions in Madagascar Grifa, Celestino Germinario, Chiara Mercurio, Mariano Izzo, Francesco Pepe, Francesco Bareschino, Piero Cucciniello, Ciro Morra, Vincenzo Cultrone , Giuseppe V. Carafa, Antonio Langella, Alessio Brick production Clayey sediments Fuels Natural resources Firing Madagascar The research was funded by grants to the Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie of the Università degli Studi del Sannio (FRA Celestino Grifa, FRA Alessio Langella) and financial support of Università di Napoli Federico II to Vincenzo Morra. Moreover, the research was supported by the grants from Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca to Ciro Cucciniello (Miur 2017 -20178LPCPW004) and Leone Melluso (Miur 2015 - 20158A9CBM), who the authors also thanks for his partial financial support, as well as the research group RNM179 of the Junta de Andalucía and the research project MAT2016-75889-R of the Spanish government. The history of brick manufacturing in Madagascar dates back to the early 1800 s when European colonisers imparted to the local population the basic knowledge for firing clayey sediment to obtain a more durable construction material. The evaluation of the entire production cycle accounting for the involved natural resources such as raw materials, fuels and derived bricks, represents the aim of this research started in 2015 and focused on both rural and urban contexts. Clayey raw materials from lateritic soils widely occur in central Madagascar whereas, in southern coastal sites, carbonate-bearing clays definitely prevail since their composition are influenced by the reef. Bricks are prepared on site with no additional manipulation of the base clay and, depending on the climatic conditions, the bricks are dried and fired from one week up to ten days. Furnaces are powered by rice husk in south-western part of the island whereas in central Madagascar the use of peat and wood was also recorded. The calorific performances of these common fuels allow achieving temperatures of 800–900 ◦C; however, the huge loss of heat due to the poor quality of the furnaces determine low equivalent firing temperatures (EFT) that negatively affect the quality of the bricks. The above described ceramic process has remained unchanged for more than 200 years and even if new social and economic opportunities arose, this unvirtuous system slowly (but inexorably) contributed to the impoverishment of important energy sources and, above all, of natural resources. 2025-05-28T12:06:15Z 2025-05-28T12:06:15Z 2021-11-15 journal article C. Grifa et al. Construction and Building Materials, 308, 125022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.125022 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/104322 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2021.125022 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier