Influence of hard rock dust on the physical and microstructural properties of red ceramic materials

Abstract

Rock dust disposal is a concern in a hard rock mining site which results from blasting operation during mining. Significant amount of rock dust is generated during mining which causes dusting problem as well. In this work, Rock dust was used with red clay to produce ceramic tiles. XRF analysis revealed the existence of more than 60 wt.% SiO2 in red clay and more than 50 wt.% SiO2 in rock dust. Pressed ceramic bodies having different amount (10–30 wt.%) of rock dust were sintered at 1050 °C, 1100 °C and 1150 °C. Different properties were measured for ceramics samples such as water absorption, porosity, mechanical strength, linear shrinkage and bulk density. Lowering of porosity (1.88–10.17%) and water absorption (1.1–6.03%) were found with 10–30 wt.% rock dust addition. Above 50 MPa of compressive strength was found, which is satisfactory for producing ceramic tiles. Microstructures of ceramics samples studied by FESEM provided effective information on structure-property relationships. Maximum quantities of rock dust waste were utilized, in reducing environmental pollution and establishing it as a raw material for ceramics industries.