Borax recently developed an equally essential role for borates in ceramic tile bodies. Manufacturing trials prove that adding borates to tile body batches offers environmental and economic advantages by lowering energy use, emissions and handling losses. The purpose of this case study is to demonstrate how - and how much - Borax's products contribute to sustainable development in the ceramic tile industry.

Economic Impact Italy and Spain are two of the leading ceramic floor and wall tile manufacturing centers in the world, as shown in Table 1. European production exceeds 1.2 billion square metres of tile per year, giving the industry a vital role both as a lifeline for local economies and an anchor for European trade.

Environmental Impact The European ceramic tile industry also consumes more than 114 million tones of raw materials each year to manufacture those tiles. Raw materials include clays, feldspars, quartz and limestone - mineral products that must be mined, processed and transported to manufacturing plants, activities which must also be accounted for in calculating the environmental impact of tile manufacture.

Social Impact Italian and Spanish tile producers face growing competition from foreign producers, whose labor and regulatory compliance costs are significantly lower. This adds urgency to the industry's search for process and product improvements that will foster its continued success in the global marketplace, and its ability to sustain its investment in clean technologies and a skilled workforce.

Borate Benefits
Refined borates - minerals that help lower energy use and breakage rates - offer the ceramic tile industry distinct social, economic and environmental advantages through the unique combination of two functions. First, borates' fluxing property lowers the energy use in the process by either reducing the time or the temperature needed to fire tiles. Second, borates' binding properties increase tile body strength, allowing manufacturers to create thinner tiles that meet the same product quality standards as their thicker counterparts.

Ceramic tile manufacture begins with grinding and spray drying raw materials to produce a free-flowing powder that is then pressed, dried, glazed and decorated before being fired. Small amounts of borates - typically less than one percent - are added to the raw materials during grinding to impart binding and fluxing properties. These properties, in turn, improve mechanical strength and reduce energy usage.

The full range benefits associated with improved binding and fluxing are presented in Table 2, below:

Lowering Emissions
The benefits of thinner ceramic tile extend beyond the manufacturing site to reach society as a whole. In fact, borates indirectly deliver CO2 reductions at three distinct stages in the tile manufacturing process. First, thinner tiles require fewer raw materials. This serves to extend the life of clay deposits, and to reduce CO2 emissions associated with shipping raw materials to the plant. Second, energy savings achieved during manufacture equate to additional CO2 reductions. Third, thinner tiles can be packed more efficiently - more tiles per shipment means lower emissions per square meter of tile, as well as a reduction in the amount of packing material needed.

The combined reduction in CO2 associated with borates is presented in Table 3 below:

Meeting Global Standards
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union has committed to reducing CO2 emissions by eight percent from 1990 levels - a reduction of 74 million tonnes all told. In 2001, total EU production of tiles was 1,481 million square meters. Reducing these tiles' thickness by 30 percent would result in a total reduction in CO2 emissions of 2.5 million tonnes, or more than three percent of the EU target.

Table 4 presents the global impact of a 30 percent reduction in tile thickness.

Lowering costs
Cost savings associated with refined borates - which translate into staying competitive in an international arena and continuing to offer competitive wages and benefits - are shown below.