In 2020 the global market size of pomegranate was 236.8 million USD and it is proposed to reach 343.6 million USD in 2027, due to the growing demand for pomegranate products such as table fruit, pomegranate jam, pomegranate juice, seed drinks, pharmaceuticals and beauty products [
6]. Along with the global statistics, Iran, USA, China and India are the major producers of pomegranate. Amid them, India as one of the largest pomegranate producer, India alone has a growing rate of 1.14 million tons annually. Peels represent 50% of the weight of the whole pomegranate and are mostly disposed of as waste [
7]. In this respect, Chiang et al. [
8] evaluated the effect of mixing dried water treatment sludge and rice husk in the production of lightweight bricks using different percentage of rice husk ranging from 0 to 20% wt. totally or partially replaced by sludge waste and sintered at firing temperatures ranging from 900 to 1100 ℃. They found that bricks fired at 1100 ℃ containing 15% wt. rice husk and 5% sludge possessed reasonable mechanical properties and low bulk density that met the standard specifications of lightweight bricks in Taiwan. Da Fonseca et al. [
9] studied the possibility of using spent coffee as a secondary raw material with clay in the production of ceramic bricks by adding different percentages ranging from 0 to 20% wt. of spent coffee with clay, dried and fired at the temperatures 900, 1000 and 1100 ℃. Specimens with up to 10% wt. of spent coffee gave the highest mechanical strengths. Moreover, thermal conductivity decreased by about 70% on adding 20% spent coffee to the ceramic bricks. On the other hand, Jambuala et al. [
10] incorporated rice husk and its ash in the preparation of porous light weight clay bricks. They fired the produced bricks at 900 ℃ for 3 h and found out that adding 10% rice husk produced bricks with a bulk density of 1.2 g cm
−3 and a compressible strength of 4.6 MPa. The corresponding values obtained on using 10% ash were 1.18 g cm
−3 and 5.97 MPa, respectively. Also, Adazabra et al. [
11] studied the disposal of spent shea waste in the production of lightweight bricks as secondary raw material. They prepared bricks with different percentage containing 5, 10, 15, 20% wt. of spent shea waste replaced with clay and sintered at different temperatures ranging from 900 to 1200 °C. They found that fired brick at 1000 ℃ containing 15% wt. spent shea waste possessed water absorption of 15.92%, a compressive strength of 6 MPa and a thermal conductivity of 0.31 W m
−1 K
−1. On the other hand, the refractory bricks produced from mixing kaolin, grog, beads of polystyrene up to 1.5% wt. and bagasse up to 5% wt. were studied by Hassan et al. [
12]. The produced bricks were dried and sintered at 1250 ℃ with soaking time 8 h. The results showed that bricks containing 3% bagasse and 1% polystyrene beads can be utilized in refractory insulation with a bulk density of 1.01 g cm
−3, crushing strength of 4.08 MPa and thermal conductivity of 0.3732 W m
−1 K
−1 at 800℃. Using the waste produced from the wine industry (stalks, grape seeds, and wine less), Torino et al. [
13] obtained lightweight clay bricks with 13% reduction in bulk density and concluded that it was possible to add up to 5% vine waste to the original recipe without impairing its properties. The use of saw dust as addition to clay brick recipes to produce fired porous bricks was recently investigated by Cultrone et al. [
14]. Their work showed that up to 10% saw dust was used and the prepared samples fired to temperatures reaching 1100 °C. They concluded that the best insulating refractory bricks were obtained for samples containing 10% wt. sawdust fired at 800 ℃. On the other hand, Siddique et al. [
15] mixed 2% cow dung slurry with up to 7.5% saw dust and obtained fired samples which were claimed to have compressive strengths reaching 31.2 MPa. Another abundant waste, namely cigarette butts, was used by Kurmus et al. [
16] as additive to clay to prepare porous bricks. Up to 2% waste by weight was incorporated. The samples were fired at temperatures reaching 1100 °C and the results showed that the thermal conductivity of the resulting bodies was lowered by 13%. The authors recommended the use of 1% by weight replacement so as not to alter the mechanical strength of the bricks. The incorporation of water treatment sludge in clay bricks for up to 50% by weight was recently studied by Heniegal et al. [
17]. They also tried the addition of some agricultural waste such as rice straw, sugarcane bagasse and wheat straw ashes to the sludge—clay mixture. They concluded that it was possible to obtain lightweight bricks of reasonable properties by firing to 900 °C a mixture of clay and water sludge to which sludge was substituted by 5% vegetable waste. Finally, it is worth mentioning that Murekar et al. [
18] and Abed et al. [
19] have published comprehensive reviews in the context of using different wastes aiming at producing lightweight bricks. In both works the different types of wastes were discussed and their potential use in the preparation of lightweight bricks evaluated.
In the present study, it is attempted to reuse pomegranate peels waste in the production of lightweight bricks with enhanced insulation properties. By incorporating waste into brick manufacturing not only provide a solution to waste disposal but also leads to resource conservation, and subsequently relieve burden on depleting clay reserves.