Present status of the Santa Gertrudes ceramic pole considering the new mineralogical and textural studies on the raw material used by the riveting industry

Santa Gertrudes ceramic's pole has been increasing very quickly since the last decade and currently it's one of the four great brazilian poles, forming 40% from national production of floor and glazed tiles, providing about 3,000 direct jobs (and nearly 5,000 indirect ones) and producing 8 million m2/month. The raw material traditionally used for this are the clays from Corumbatal Formation crops out in the region. However, not always a clay from a single deposit fulfills the physical and mineralogical conditions demanded by the industry. Due to this problem, UNICER makes the blending of several raw materials (particularly from Peruchi and Cruzeiro deposits, the highlight of this paper). It's still in preliminary studies the introduction of limestones from Irati Formation to improve the final product's quality. For a better characterization of the clay minerals from Peruchi and Cruzeiro deposits (and the limestone from Irati Formation, too) the approach adopted was just like this: field survey (sampling and macroscopic description), laboratory survey (physical chemical and mineralogical assays) and office survey (bibliographical review and report's manufacture. (author)