Potential of Chambersite Tailing as Raw Material for the Preparation of Glass Ceramic: Investigation on Crystallization Behavior and Crystal Structure

The feasibility of preparing glass ceramic from chambersite gravity tailings was explored. The crystallization parameters and state of glass ceramic were analyzed by Johnson–Mehl–Avrami and Augis–Bennett equations. The effects of sintering temperature and crystallization duration on bending strength and water absorption of glass ceramic were investigated, while the phase composition, crystal structure, lattice constants and surface topography were characterized. The results indicate the crystallization behavior of chambersite tailings glass ceramic is mainly body crystallization with clinopyroxene as a primary crystalline phase, the activation energy for crystallization (E) is 315.27 kJ/mol, the kinetics parameter for crystallization (k) is 7.98 × 10 ¹⁴, and the main phase lattice constants of clinopyroxene were a= 0.97392 nm, b= 0.88521 nm, c= 0.52748 nm, β= 107.062 ^∘. At sintering temperature of 890 ^∘C, pyroxene crystal with tetragonal column structure is formed, the diameter of the crystal is about 0.05–0.5 μ m, while the crystallinity is more than 75%; the bending strength of the glass ceramic increases with the decrease in material particle size; at the D ₉₀ of 5.71 μ m and crystallization duration of 150 min, the bending strength of glass ceramic reaches the maximum of 128.3 MPa and the water absorption is between 0.06 and 0.02%.