Abstract:
Low density ceramic structures have an important
place in application areas such as heat, noise and
noise insulation. Besides, being durable and
inexpensive is also a demand for producers and
consumers. In this study, it is aimed to produce
lightweight insulation ceramic materials from a binder
clay containing diatomite and vermiculite raw
materials in different proportions which is a local and
natural mineral raw material source for low
temperature applications. For this purpose, firstly,
powdered raw materials is characterized for particle
size distribution, chemical composition (x-ray
fluorescence, XRF), thermal behavior (thermal
gravimetric analysis, TGA), morphological structure
(scanning electron microscope, SEM) and crystal
phase structure (x-ray diffraction, XRD). Specific
prescriptions were then prepared and pellet samples
were obtained using the pressing method. The bulk
density and porosity, dimensional changes, thermal
conductivity coefficients and microstructural
properties of the samples fired at temperatures
between 900, 1000 and 1100 °C were compared. As
a result of the study, the porosity of the ceramic
samples containing 60% diatomite, 10% vermiculite
and 30% binder clay increased up to 47%, while the
bulk density values were obtained at 1.3 g/cm3 and
the thermal conductivity coefficient was at 0.439 W /
mK.
