This work indicates the synthesis of samarium doped zinc silicate (willemite) glass ceramics with different weight concentrations. Solid-state reaction technique was used to make up the samples, with waste rice husks as silicate source. The measurement of X-ray diffraction revealed sharp and broad diffraction peaks. Besides, the Field emission scanning electron microscope exhibited the poly grains morphology of the crystalline samples. Consequently, samarium strips were growing in size as the weight percent of dopant was increased. While Fourier transforms infrared spectra, showed slight variation peaks with diverse dopant concentrations. Then the energy band gaps of samarium doped willemite glass ceramics were reduced with the increment of samarium dopant concentrations. The photoluminescence measurement exhibited the red emission which agreed to the 4G5/2 → 6H11/6 (646.71 nm) under the blue excitation.

This study presents the formation of the zinc silicate from amorphous silica obtained from waste rice ash, with the addition of zinc oxide nanoparticles by conventional solid-state technique. The XRD showed the sharp intensive and small peaks while FTIR results indicated very slight variations in their peaks with the increased of samarium dopant concentrations. The FESEM clearly showed the cracks of zinc silicate doped with samarium the samples. The least thermal diffusivity values from 0.2039 to 0.1392 mm2/s acquired by pure zinc silicate (willemite) sintered at 1000°C. The thermal diffusivity was increasing with dopant concentration and decreasing with the rise in temperature (27-500°C). The thermal diffusivity curves revealed the exponential decay with the pores and cracks in the samples.

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