Abstract: This paper presents an investigation on current use of brick kiln
technologies in Bangladesh. There are around five thousand established and
numerous make-shift brickfields of various capacities all over the country.
Most of the kilns in Bangladesh are fixed chimney (FCK) type, which are
somewhat old technology and sources of pounding pollutions. Recently the
Department of Environment (DoE) of the Bangladesh Government has directed
brickfield owners to switch to comparatively better environment friendly
technologies like Zigzag, Hybrid Hoffman (HHK) and Vertical Shaft (VSK) kilns.
Most of brickfield owners are not familiar with these kilns and thus reluctant
to make over due to lack of industrial knowledge and financial support. However
few companies have implemented these technologies on pilot-scale and are yet to
demonstrate their full financial viability. As such, broad range technical
information along with financial analysis of these technologies is presented
here. A set of recommendations are prepared in relation to these technologies
suited to their investment opportunity, land accessibility, energy and
raw-material supply, labour availability and other requirements. Amongst the
three technologies, HHK is the most suitable one for large-scale production
whereas FCK if modified and converted into Zigzag kiln will be relatively fuel
efficient and less polluting. On the other hand VSK, which are comparatively
smaller in capacity, can be made popular in rural Bangladesh. The payback
periods of these three kilns are 3.14, 3.27 and 2.62 years respectively,
whereas CO_2 emission potentials are 22.20, 15.86 and 28.54 tCO_2e, respectively
compared to 38.06 tCO_2e for FCK.
