Clay, feldspar and silica sand are important industrial minerals which often need treatment commonly known as beneficiation to improve the quality of ceramic tiles produced from these materials. The different minerals, after sorting, were treated separately in distilled water, alcohol and hydrochloric acid before being crushed in a ball mill; they were then characterized using a pelletron accelerator. The results show an increased silicon content for clay, silica sand and feldspar; and reduced aluminum content for clay and silica sand but not for feldspar. Iron impurity and its oxide are also shown to reduce by over 50% in all the minerals while potassium was found to be the dominant element in feldspar among the defining elements. In conclusion, the increased quartz in the mineral will improve the hardness, density, porosity, and rigidity of ceramic tiles as well as providing support and controlling shrinkage. Furthermore, increasing the mineral quotient in feldspar will enhance its fluxing potential.

No abstract

Moulding properties of Isasa River Sand bonded with Ipetumodu clay (Ife-North Local Government Area, Osun State, Nigeria) were investigated. American Foundry men Society (AFS) standard cylindrical specimens 50mm diameter and 50mm in height were prepared from various sand and clay ratios (between 18% and 32%) with 15% water content. The stress-strain curves were generated from a universal strength testing machine. A flow factor was calculated from the inclination of the falling slope beyond the maximum compressive strength. The result shows that the flowability of the samples increases from 18% to 26% clay content, its maximum value was attained at 26% and then it decreases from 30% to 32% clay content. The green compressive strength, dry compressive strength and air permeability values obtained from the mould samples were in accordance with standard values used in foundry practice. The x-ray diffraction test shows that the sand contains silicon oxide (SiO 2 ), Aluminium oxide (Al 2 O 3 ), and Aluminium silicate (Al 6 Si 2 O 13 ). The mould samples were heated to a temperature of 1200 o C to determine the sintering temperature; fussion did not take place at this temperature. The results showed that the sand and clay mixture can be used to cast ferrous and non-ferrous alloys.

The influence of the refractory coating which is a mixture of silica flour and kaolin on the surface roughness of the plate castings produced using evaporative patterns had been considered in this work. The kaolin was used as a binder and ratio method was employed to form basis for the factorial design of experiment which led to nine runs of experiments. Methyl alcohol at 99% concentration was used as the carrier for the transfer of the coating to the surface of the patterns. Pouring temperature was observed as a process parameter alongside the mix ratios of the coating. Attempts were made to characterize the refractory coating by using two methods; differential thermal analysis (DTA) and X-ray diffraction. Attempt was also made to characterize the casting material. Gating system design was done for the plate casting to determine the correct proportions of the gating parameters in order to construct the gating system properly to avoid turbulence during pouring of liquid metal. A digital profilometer was used to take the measurements of the surface roughness. It was observed that the mix ratio 90% silica flour-10% kaolin produced the lowest value of the surface roughness of the plate castings and had the lowest material loss in the DTA test. The pouring temperature of 650 o C produced best casting.