Preparation of Ceramic Porous Body Using Different Volume Concentration of Ball Clay & Wheat Flour

Abstract

The rheological study of the slurry containing ball clay and using different deflocculant (Sodium Silicate) concentration has been done. Slurry with different solid loading are prepared by taking ball clay and water in different proportions with solid loading 30%, 35% and 40% (by volume). Deflocculant with different concentrations are mixed with different slurries (with different solid loading). Deflocuculant with 5 different proportions was taken. Defloculant with 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, 1 % and 1.25% (weight %) of the clay were taken and poured in a plastic bottle with alumina balls for wet milling for 12hrs. Rheology of the slurry was then studied by measuring the viscosity, sedimentation height and zeta potential of the slurry. Further with this optimized solid loading (30 Vol% Solid Loading) and the amount of deflocculant (0.85 wt. % of Ball clay), ceramic porous body was prepared with this fixed solid loading, but varying the ratio of ball clay and wheat flour. In this fixed solid loading, the wheat flour and ball clay was varied in the ratio 10:90, 20:80, 30:70, 40:60 and 50:50 by volume.The different slurry was prepared with varying ratio of wheat flour and ball clay as mentioned above. In this slurry, the amount of deflocculant was fixed 0.85% (wt %) of the total ball clay taken. These slurries were mixed through pot milling for 12 hours. Then the slurry was casted in a metal mold and kept at drier for 24 hours to get a cylindrical shaped body which was later fired at a different temperature. Different samples were fired at different temperatures to get the final ceramic porous body. Samples were fried at 11000C, 12000C and 13000C. Then characterization of the prepared ceramic porous body was done by determining Drying Shrinkage, Firing shrinkage, Apparent Porosity, Bulk Density and Cold Crushing strength