'Hai Lua' sells billions of land to build bricks

Although not trained formally, a farmer in Ha Nam successfully researched a super-light brick that could float on the water and not harm the environment.

Mr. Tran Van Luong, born in 1968, was born and raised in the poor countryside of Nhat Tuu commune, Kim Bang district, Ha Nam province. After finishing high school, he went to the South to live on a job as a farmer in charge of renting materials and making magic powder.

In early 2002, seeing neighbors who went to buy retail cement, curious to ask, was told that this person was studying to create super light but not successful construction materials. Curious, he went to his neighbor's house, and saw with his own eyes that this person dropped into the piece of material that didn't sink into the water but emerged . "I don't believe it, so I took another brick to submerge the material, it still floated a week later but the strength of the force was not there, it was crushed," Luong said.

Since then, Mr. Luong came up with the idea of ​​making super-light, environmentally friendly materials. In 2005, he decided to go home with his wife and children to open a trading company to build construction materials to have time to study.

Mr. Tran Van Luong tinkered with making lightweight bricks from coal slag. (Photo: Van Dinh)

Implementing the above idea, he began to explore online, reading books and articles about brick making technology of countries around the world, comparing applying to his research.

He ignored the advice of family and friends when they thought it was unthinkable, even, to have research money, he had to sell 2 trucks, a plot of 800 million dong to buy investment. machines.

Raw materials for making super light bricks are very simple, Mr. Luong takes advantage of discarded materials such as coal slag, rice husk, corn stalks, straw and straw in combination with cement, sand is then mixed with the most ratio. Every step is done very well, just scratching out the brick is very fragile.

The important factor that makes this material closely linked is to have a foaming agent. After many years, he created it made from animal skin, sap and some other foaming agents to create an incredible plastic compound.

When there is a formula for making lightweight bricks, Mr. Luong calculates to find a foreign company to be able to produce according to the machinery system. But if you do so, the cost of production will be larger, meaning that the selling price is also higher. He decided to make his own machines that could be produced in large quantities, while the price of materials would be reduced to poor families.

He said: "I started to buy the motor and then the conventional concrete mixer frame to manufacture but constantly had to remove it up to a dozen times because the machine causes the operation to be inconsistent with the material".

After several months and nights of research, he built a system of kneading machines, foaming machines to crushers, sieves and mortar thrusters.

In early 2009, his first ultralight bricks were born, able to float on the water, soundproof, heat-resistant, many times more force than normal construction materials. Especially, this type of bricks is not baked like other types of bricks, so it is environmentally friendly and does not cause pollution. Hardness of this type of bricks is much better, high strength.

Bricks floating on the water. (Photo: Van Dinh)

If a concrete block usually weighs 2.7 tons, and a super light concrete block is only 3 quintals, it is not very water-repellent very quickly dry after 15 to 25 hours suitable for all large and small projects. The house is 45m ² , 4 people built within 3 days is perfect while if built by brick usually 4 people lose the whole month to complete.

Ultra-light bricks of all sizes suitable to the construction cost of the people, he sold out for 950 thousand VND / m ³ while the products with imported quality amounted to 1 million 300 thousand up to 1 million 500 thousand / m ³ .

Luong's invention has been recognized by the Institute of Building Materials, under the Ministry of Construction, as a super light material, having the effect of waterproofing, fireproofing standard TCVN 317: 2005. Last year, his product was received by the Department. intellectual property recognized. The product of ultra-light cellulosic tiles of Anh Luong enterprise has been on the market throughout the provinces such as Hanoi, Hai Duong, Hoa Binh and many other provinces.

Each year, he produces hundreds of thousands of bricks, but due to limited investment capital and small factory premises (about 1.800m ² ), only 10% of customers' needs are met.

In the coming time, Mr. Luong said, he will go to other places in the country to get scrap samples there to study such as taking coal slag of Quat Dong thermal power plant in Bac Giang, soil samples in each In the region, study to use brackish water to produce ultralight materials because in the Mekong River Delta, mainly brackish water, raw materials for very production are available, reducing transportation costs are cheap, Everyone uses and produces unburnt bricks with redundant soil when digging foundations to produce bricks and build them together, but that work is still being studied.