Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
Faculty Manufacturing Engineering
Research Proposal
Title: Study on the batch formulation and sintering optimization of waste glass into glass
ceramic (using pressureless method)
Objectives of the Research
This study embarks on the following objectives:
1. To determine the suitable batch composition (utilizing maximum waste glass) in order to
produce integrates glass ceramic.
2. To optimize sintering temperature of the batch composition in order to produce
integrates glass ceramic.
Background
Industrial and urban wastes vary in quantity, physical and chemical composition consistency
and properties, and in methods used for their disposal. Furthermore they are continuously
changing as new technologies produce different wastes. Industrial development over the last
decades has generated large amounts of toxic and hazardous inorganic wastes which need
proper attention in handling, immobilization and disposal. Thus, increasing amount of wastes is
one issue that receives a lot of attention and waste management is considered as a critical
national issue. Among these wastes are solid wastes that can be breakdown into different type
e.g. paper, household waste, steel, glass, plastic and others. In Malaysia, glass wastes
represent 4% of the total solid waste (Figure 1) and the amount is expected to increase due to
daily utilization and technological demand. Examples of waste glass are container glass, panel
glasses (e.g. television screen and computer screen) and cathode ray tube. Recycling is one
method used to reduce waste glass. Thus, it is essential to embark research on recycling local
waste glass as to contribute toward national waste management issue.
The production of glass-ceramic materials made by recycling industrial wastes is a well-known
technology (Juoi, J.M., 2008). Many researchers have paid much attention to produce glass,
glass ceramic and sintered materials from industrial wastes such as container glass, coal fly
ash, incinerator fly ash and steel fly ash in order to make them reasonably safe for the
environment. For example,glass-ceramics, intended for building applications such as Russian
Slagsitalls, developed as early as the 1960s, by employing several slags of ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy, ashes and wastes from mining and chemical industries, constitute an
undoubtedly well-developed and widespread way to absorb glasses obtained from the treatment
of several wastes. In addition to the environmental advantage of immobilizing wastes into
materials with a generally high chemical resistance (like glass ceramic), a certain economic
benefit may be found in entering the large market of construction materials. Moreover, glassceramics obtained from industrial wastes have several desirable properties to fulfill many
applications such as wall covering panels, floors and roofs in industrial and public buildings,
interior facing of containers for the chemical industry and as road surfacing. The feasibility of
glass recycling into clay bodies was already proved in the case of wastes from car windshields
(Mörtel and Fuchs, 1997), soda-lime float and container glasses (Matteucci et al., 2002).
Glass-ceramic materials are generally produced by a traditional glass-forming technique starting
from the melted glass, followed by controlled nucleation and crystallization heat treatment
processes.
In recent years, glass-ceramics were developed using the technique of sinter-
crystallization of glass powders. The advantages of this method are essentially that it does not
require high investment and it is suitable for the production of small quantities of articles of
complicated shapes. Because of that, it has been widely investigated by researchers and
companies and employed in this research. Many valuable products (cellular glasses, glass–
ceramics, glass, and glass–ceramic matrix composites) may be manufactured by sintering fine
glass powders, easily obtained by grinding glass pieces. In particular, fine glass powders are
useful in the glass–ceramic processing: the processing of sintered glass–ceramics depends on
the surface crystallization of glass (‘‘sinter-crystallization’’), which is largely favored for small
glass granules, so that catalysts in the glass formulation or long nucleation/crystal growth
treatments are not needed.
The recycling of waste glass into glass ceramic is dependent on the glass composition. This is
due to the fact that only specific glass compositions are suitable precursors for glass-ceramics;
some glasses are too stable and difficult to crystallize, such as ordinary window glass, whereas
others crystallize in an uncontrollable manner resulting in undesirable microstructures. Also, the
heat treatment is critical to achieve an acceptable and reproducible product. Thus, heat
treatments procedures need to be carefully developed and modified for a specific glass
composition. Glass powder sinters by a viscous flow mechanism at lower temperatures. It is
important to consider the rates of viscous flow sintering and crystallisation and the interaction of
these processes. If crystallisation is too rapid the resulting high degree of crystallinity will hinder
the low temperature sintering leading to an unacceptable amount of porosity On the other hand,
if sintering is fully completed before crystallisation, then the final product is unlikely to differ
significantly from those fabricated by other methods. With appropriate rates it is possible in
some cases to fabricate dense glass-ceramics by a sintering process in which both densification
and crystallisation take place simultaneously at the same temperature. Optimisation of
composition and sintering temperature can lead to different microstructures, and even different
crystalline phases, compared to those from the conventional method, and hence different
properties of the product. Thus, this research is focusing on the study on batch formulation and
sintering optimization in order to produce integrated glass ceramic.
The glass ceramics produced from waste depend in large part on the consistency of the wastes
chemical composition which will affect the physical properties of the final product. One of the
most consistent wastes in terms of chemical composition is recycled Soda Lime Silicate (SLS)
glass. SLS glass may by itself represent a form of waste, because it corresponds to the fraction
of recycled material hardly used in the preparation of new glass, for the contamination of
different materials. The main sources of recycle SLS glass are disposed container material
such as bottles and food container. The amount of this type of waste is increasing due to an
ever-growing use of glass product. The main compositions of SLS glass are sodium, calcium
and silicon oxides with minor constituents include alumina, magnesia and several other oxides.
Generally it is a low cost raw materials good glass manufacturing characteristics with a low
melting temperature, easily worked and durable.
Recycled SLG glass is varied in color
depending upon the additives of the main composition. In this fundamental research, only
transparent glass is utilized as to minimize the effect of waste glass composition during the
batch formulation. The batch formulation will concentrate looking on the effect of different type
of filers e.g. clay, alumina and binders.
Benefit
1. New findings
Results are expected to initiate further study on glass recycling based on the
optimization of batch composition and sintering temperature.
2. Research publications
2 conferences and 1 international journal
3. Number of PhD and Masters (by research) Students
1 M. Sc
Methodology
Experimental work involved:
Raw Materials Preparation and Characterization
1. Waste glass collection, crushing and grinding.
2. Raw materials characterization involves Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA), X-Ray
Fluorescence (XRF), X-Rauy Diffraction (XRD) of waste glass, filler and binder.
Batch Formulation
1. Different batch formulation are going to be prepared with an approach to utilize the
maximum amount of waste in the formulation in producing integrate glass ceramic.
2. Different types of filler e.g. clay, alumina and silica are considered with an addition of
possible binder during the batch preparation.
Samples Preparation
1. Compaction of pellets (via pressing and CIP method).
2. Sintering of pellet at different profiles (temperature and duration variations).
Analyses and Tests
1. SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) to analyze the surface morphology and the
microstructure.
2. XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) to analyze phase’s constitution.
3. Physical properties analyses (e.g. ASTM C373 Porosity, density and water
measurement).
4. Micro-hardness test ASTM C1327.
5. Compression test ASTM C1424.
Flow Chart
Access to Equipment and Material
University
Other Sources or Places
Equipments:
Ball Milling -FKP
Pressing Machine -FKP
Cold Isostatic Press (CIP) -FKP
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) -FKP
X-Ray Diffraction Analyses (XRD) -FKP
Microhardness test – FKP
Differential Thermal Analysis(DTA)
USM
X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis (XRF)
USM
Gantt Chart
Attached at the back.
References
1. Abbe, O.E., GrimesS. M., Fowler, G.D. & Boccaccini, A.R.(2009) Novel sintered glassceramics from vitrified oil well drill cuttings. J. Mater. Sci., 44, 4296-4302.
2. Bernardo, E. (2007). “Fast sinter-crystallization of a glass from waste materials” Journal
of Non-crystalline Solids. Vol. 354, pp. 3486-3490.
3. Brown, I.W. M. & Mackenzie, K. J. D.(1982) Process design for the production of a
ceramic-like body from recycled waste glass. J. Mater. Sci., 17, 2164-2170.
4. Bernardo, E. (2005). “Sintered Glass-Ceramic from mixtures of wastes” Ceramic
International. Vol. 33, pp. 27-33.
5. Cihon, J. A. (1991).”An impervious ceramic article of the present invention is prepared
from a raw batch formulation including virgin soda-lime glass cullet and clay”, US Patent.
6. Dutton, R.E. & Rahaman, M.N.(1993). “Creep viscosity of glass-matrix composites near
the percolation threshold”, Journal of Materials Science Letters, 12 (18), pp. 1451-1456.
7. Erol, M., Kucukbayrak, S., Ersoy-Mericboyu, A., (2009). “The influence of the binder on
the properties of sintered glass-ceramics produced from industrial wastes” Ceramic
International. Vol. 35, pp. 2609-2617.
8. Juoi, J.M. (2008). “The Effect of waste loading on glass composite wasteform
immobilising simulated spent clinoptilolite”, Ph.D thesis, University of Sheffield, UK.
9. Lingart, J. (1996). “The invention concerns a process for manufacturing natural stonetype panel-shaped construction and decoration materials of high strength for facing
facades, walls and floors in indoor and outdoor areas” , US Patent.
10. Matteucci, F., Dondi, M., Guarini, G., (2002). “Effect of soda-lime glass on sintering and
technological properties of porcelain stoneware tiles” Ceramic International. Vol. 28, pp.
873-880.
11. Rasskazov, V. F., Ashmarin, G. D. & Livada, A. N.(2009) Waste in Production:
Production of Construction Materials using Technogenic Wastes. Glass and Ceramic,
66, 1-2,3-6.
12. Rozenstrauha, I., Bajare, D., Cimdins, R., Berzina, L. (2006). “The influence of various
addition on a glass-ceramic matrix composition based on industrial waste” Ceramic
International Vol. 32, pp. 115-119.
13. Shutt, T. C & Campbell, H. (i976) “Structural clay products such as bricks, tile and blocks
are made using waste soda lime glass, other inorganic materials and ball clay” US
Patent.
14. Turgut, P., Yahlizade, E. S. (2009). “Research into Concrete Blocks with Waste Glass”
International Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering. Vol. 1, pp. 202-207.
RESEARCH GANTT CHART
2010
Project Activities
J
A
S
O
2011
N
D
J
F
M
A
M
J
30 June 2011
Literature Studies/ Reviews
31 December 2010
Experimental Setup
Experimental Test
Result and Data Analysis
Final Report
J
31 March 2011
31 May 2011
30 June 2011