Mambong clay is a traditional pottery that originally from Kampong Mambong, Kuala Krai, Kelantan, Malaysia. The new fabrication technique of this pottery is the slip casting technique. However, the innovation of Mambong pottery does not only limited to the fabrication technique, but also the materials used in the fabrication in order to improve its physical properties. Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is one of the materials that can be used in this fabrication as an additive due to the ability to stabilize the clay soil and improves the clay physical properties. In this study, the various CaCO3 contents (0, 5, 10, and 15%) were investigated to get the optimum amount of CaCO3 to improve the physical properties of Mambong clay by using slip casting method. Mambong clay with different amount of CaCO3 addition was compared in term of microstructure, density, porosity, shrinkage, and flexural strength.

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Mambong pottery is a unique heritage of Kelantan state with its own identity and features. However, the fabrication technique of this pottery can be improved to gain the product quality in terms of its properties. The additional of CaCO3 as an additive opens the opportunities to improve the properties of this pottery. Four different compositions which are 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% of CaCO3 were used in 12 hours firing duration. The slip casting method was used in this research as the modern fabrication technique. The aim of this research is to study the Mambong clay properties improvement with different compositions of CaCO3 addition.

Nickel oxide (NiO) belongs to the transition metal oxide family, having good dielectric constantwith the range of 103 – 105, but it has high dielectric loss. In this research, the effect of titaniumdioxide (TiO2) addition into NiO was investigated. Generally, TiO2 was used in the application ofelectrical ceramic, catalysts, electric conductors and chemical intermediates. Ni1-xTixO1+x wasprepared via solid-state reaction method with 6 different TiO2 compositions. The preparation startedwith the powder mixing process for 24 hours and followed by calcination process at 950 °C for 4hours. Then, the calcined powders were compacted into 6 mm pellet shape under pressure of 250MPa pressure. Three pellets were made for each TiO2 composition. Those pellets were sintered at1250 °C for 5 hours. XRD results showed that pure NiO at 0.01 and 0.02 mole % of TiO2compositions produced single NiO crystalline phase, while 0.03, 0.05 and 0.10 mol % of TiO2showed the TiO2, instead of NiO phases. SEM analysis showed that increasing TiO2 concentrationmake the grain size increase, with 0.02 mole % of TiO2 gave the largest grain size, shows that 0.02mole % is the optimum TiO2 concentration for grain size enlargement. Furthermore, the bulkdensity of Ni1xTixO1+xpellet was reduces at higher TiO2 concentration. In dielectric test, the additionof 0.03 mole % of TiO2 gave the highest dielectric constant with value of 4.51 x 1014 and 0.05 mole% of TiO2 gives the result of lowest dielectric loss (0.53).

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