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• Bricks made by bottom ashes, cellulose fibers and clay have been successfully made and tested. • Optimum blends are made of 70% of clay, 25% of bottom ashes and 5% of cellulose fibers. • The so made bricks comply mechanical requirements and are 20% lighter. • Lower thermal conductivity and equal specific heat capacity is achieved. • Toxicity analysis abides by standards in force. The paper and pulp industry (PPI) is permanently searching for new ways of managing its residues due to the increasing pressure of new environmental concerns and policies adopted worldwide. In addition, the manufacturing of construction materials such as fired clay bricks (FCBs) is also facing the transformation of its traditional market, which is asking for new materials with a lower environmental footprint but equal or even better technological properties. In considering the large mass flows related to both the PPI and FCB industries, several researchers have pointed out the feasibility of replacing clay by residues produced by PPI. However, these approaches have always considered the replacement of a single residue rather than the addition of several new ones. Conversely, by using both residues at once, the overall FCB performance is improved and the feasibility of this circular economy approach is eased. For instance, the addition of woody fibres increases thermal resistance but reduces mechanical strength. Conversely, the addition of ashes produced by PPI improved the mechanical strength by reducing the thermal resistance due to the increasing content of fluxing agents which improve the fired clay matrix structure. For this reason, this paper explores the technological properties achieved by replacing clay with both ashes and fibres provided by PPI in an integrated approach. By following industrial procedures, the so made fired clay bricks (with 20% of ash and 5% of fibres) meet the standard and show approx. 20% less thermal conductivity, with the same thermal capacity and a density reduction of more than 15%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a brief review on reversible dielectric nonlinearity (RDN) was presented and the mechanism of tunability for ferroelectric ceramics was discussed in several different scale levels, such as atomic level (intrinsic nonlinearity described by ferroelectric thermodynamic theory), nano-meter scale (polar nano-region response), submicron scale (ferroelectric domain and domain wall motion), micron scale (polycrystalline structure of ceramics and surface layer) and macroscopic scale (field induced phase transition). It suggests that RDN is a multi-scale phenomenon and is temperature and frequency-sensitive. The halving field E0 in Roberts' Equation may be a good attempt for the quantitating of RDN. The stability of RDN in paraelectric phase is also mentioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]