Suitability of ball clay from mukah, paloh and chamek to be used in the porcelain tile industry in Malaysia
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Date
2016-06
Authors
Joanna Anusha Darmarajah
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Abstract
Ball clays are an important raw material in the manufacture of porcelain tiles to offer fired strength. In Malaysia, there are several locations of ball clay mining, such as Batang Berjuntai in Selangor, Chamek and Paloh in Johor and Mukah in Sarawak. Guocera Tiles Industries currently uses the ball clays from Batang Berjuntai in their porcelain tile manufacturing. However, the Batang Berjuntai clay is running low on stock. Therefore this thesis presents the properties of the clays from Paloh, Chamek and Mukah to determine their suitability to be used in the porcelain tile manufacturing process of Guocera Tile Industries. In order to study this, physical property testing was carried out on all the four clays and their clay properties were analyzed. These four clays were also used in the porcelain tile formula to study the effects of changing the source of ball clay on the properties of the tiles. The processes involved in the production the test samples of clay and porcelain tiles include batching, milling, drying pressing and firing. The tests carried out on these samples were shrinkage, water absorption, fired color, MOR and COE. The main properties looked into were the dry MOR and water absorption values for both the clay and the porcelain tiles. Based on the results, the Paloh and Chamek clay showed near zero porosity that is 0.02 % and 0.08 % respectively when fired at a temperature of 1120°C, as compared to the Batang Berjuntai clay that had a porosity of 0.15 % and 1.02% porosity for the Mukah clays at that same temperature. The MOR values for the porcelain tiles using these four clays were in the range of 23-30 N. Judging by these values, the Paloh and Chamek clays exhibit properties most similar to the Batang Berjuntai clay and therefore is most suitable to replace it in porcelain tile manufacturing.