Innovative concepts and technologies for the building materials industry

For almost 30 years now, Keratek has supplied engineering services for the clay brick and roofing tile industry. In recent years, it has established an innovative high-temperature gas circulation system, the Turboblock 800, on the market. We spoke to Keratek founder Karl-Heinz Brakemeier and his successor Christian Gäbelein, who took over the company as of 1 January 2013.

Zi: Mr Brakemeier, in your view, what have been the outstanding events in the company’s history?

K. H. B.: It began with me selling my own brickworks to Indonesia and setting it up again there. During the planning and redesign, basically I got hooked again. The challenge excited me and inspired me to realize my own ideas as well as to improve and optimize existing equipment. So then in the 1980s we developed the container kiln, and later in the early 1990s the UFF (Universal Fast Firing) kiln. This kiln operates without kiln cars, but in those days it was simply too far ahead of its time. In...

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