Dear Readers!
Here it is, our first issue of ZI Brick and Tile Industry International!
We are Silvio Schade (left) and Wolfgang Deil, the two newbies. With the last issue of the year 2020, we are taking over from Anett Hümmer, the editor who looked after this trade journal for 19 years. Let us take this opportunity to thank you again, Anett, for everything that you have done for the journal! We shall do everything to make sure ZI continues to flourish in the years to come!
The preconditions for this aren’t at all bad: Silvio Schade (let’s switch for a moment to the more professionally distant “he”) has been an editor at Bauverlag for almost eight years. As a trained bricklayer and graduate construction engineer, he is an insider in the construction and the construction materials sector. Wolfgang Deil has studied journalism amongst other things and worked in recent years as a PR consultant for companies, associations and information campaigns in the brick and tile industry.
We (let’s go back to the more personal “we”) are taking on this task in challenging times. 2020 will go down in history as the Corona year, and the danger coming from Covid-19 has not yet been averted. The threat is felt especially by those with a business model based on bringing people together: trade fair and event organizers.
Messe München hesitated for a long time, but now we know: BAU 2021 will not be a traditional in-person trade fair. Tecnargilla has been cancelled completely for 2020. But in both cases – and this is encouraging – alternative concepts have been developed, which create new possibilities for coming together and hopefully also opportunities for doing business with each other. BAU 2021 will take place between January 13 and 15 as a digital format (page 54). With Tecna Next a virtual platform has been developed to avoid the time up to the next Tecnargilla in September 2021 being a total financial loss, that’s the hope at least (page 55).
In the meantime, research work fortunately goes on: a cooperative project of the Gas and Thermal Energy Institute, Brick and Tile Research Institute, the supplier Lingl and the brickworks Ziegelwerk Bellenberg shows us how energy can be used more efficiently with a new combustion concept (page 18 ff.). On the roadmap to CO2-free production of bricks and tiles, gas-fired microturbines are making a significant contribution to improving energy efficiency, as we find out in the article by Dipl.-Ing. Franz Obermeyer, who heads an engineering office specializing in energy efficiency and environmental protection (page 08 ff.).
We hope that these and many other articles in this issue bring you insights and hopefully enjoyable reading.
Best regards
Silvio Schade
Wolfgang Deil
