Comparative Study on the Addition of Cullet to Mowe and Ibamajo Clays for Ceramic Tiles Production

Abstract

Waste broken glass known as cullet is one of the most common silicate wastes and has high volume in the urban wastes collection. Substantial amount of this wastes are being dumped in the city’s garbage deposits. In the last few decades, there has been considerable research on the reuse of glass wastes as aggregate to produce glass-ceramic, mortars, cement and concrete. This work studies the effect of waste glass (cullet) addition in the production of ceramic wall tiles using Mowe and Ibamajo clays in Ogun State, Nigeria. Pulverized waste glass was prepared by sieving using a 1.8mm mesh size in order to get the required samples that will be used for pressing the ceramic tiles. Ceramic bodies (CB) were pressed (5.08cm x 5.08cm) and (2.5cm x 2.5cm) using a ceramic mass with 0, 10, 20 and 30 % of cullet powder, respectively. These were cured; oven dried and fired between the temperature ranges of 800-1200ºC. The result of the linear shrinkage shows an increase in the linear shrinkage with increase in glass addition but this was still within the standard value.  The average compressive strength value of Mowe and Ibamajo was in accordance with the standards also (14.68N/mm²–28.61N/mm²).The study provides a base for the conversion of wastes to wealth, specially, the recycling of broken glass with the results obtained.

Keywords: cullet, recycling, aggregates, ceramic bodies, wall tiles