Self-glazed ceramics using chemical swelling of zinc-metal powder

Abstract EN

Glazing process is considered as a very important step for a lot of unfinished ceramic wares to be suit various technical applications.

An attempt was made, in this work, to use a self-glazing process.

This includes mixing the necessary raw materials with the some other additives, which has the ability of producing glaze material during firing.

Our ceramics were based on kaolin and silica.

The promising additive to be responsible for making glaze was zinc metal powder which is known to undergo chemical swelling with dilute solution of sodium hydroxide.

A well crystallized new phase of will mite produces the glaze nature to ceramics fired at high temperatures, causing an increasing in specific gravity of unformed fired powders and decreasing in porosity and water absorption and increasing in the linear shrinkage, apparent solid density and the strength of the fabricated ceramics.

This was supported by X-ray and SEM examinations.