The products break down into two groups:
Diatomite bricks, made from clay quarried in a local quarry operated by the company.
This second activity is by far the largest, accounting for nearly 95% of volumes.
They are parallelepiped shaped bricks of standard shape and quality. It is a product whose origins are very distant and whose properties and benefits have been constant for many decades.
The technical progress is recent and mainly due to the tightening of specifications and controls, in particular with the implementation of quality standards.
The service life is very dissimilar depending on the uses that are made of it. We will distinguish two great families:
Consumables
The product is included in the production process and intended to be lost with the production cycle. It may be a few hours, for example the manufacture of the melting pockets in the first casting of the steel melt. In the glassware trades, depending on the application, the lifespan of a firebrick can vary from three months to one year.
Firing equipments
The life is obviously much longer and can go up to fifteen years. Brick is used as a construction material for baking ovens. Lining, ie the walls (walls and vaults), furnaces has a life of about seven years for cold areas and two to three years for hot areas.
Brick is also involved in the manufacture of kiln cars. A standard product has a life of between three and six years depending on the application.