Effects of body formulation and firing temperature to properties of ceramic tile incorporated with electric arc furnace (EAF) slag waste

Significant quantities of sludge and slag are generated as waste materials or by-products from steel industries. One of the by-products is Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) steel slag which consists of oxides such as CaO, Al2O3 and FeO. This makes it possible for slag to partially replace the raw materials in ceramic tile production. In our preliminary assessment of incorporating the EAF slag into ceramic tile, it was revealed that at fixed firing temperature of 1150°C, the tile of composition 40 wt.% EAF slag – 60 wt.% ball clay has comparable properties with commercial ceramic tile. Thus, this current study would focus on effects of body formulation (different weight percentages of K-feldspar and silica) and different firing temperatures to properties of EAF slag added ceramic tile. EAF slag from Southern Steel Berhad (SSB) was crushed into micron size (EAF slag content was 40 wt.%) and milled with ball clay, K-feldspar and silica before compacted and fired at 1125°C and 1150°C. The EAF slag added tile was characterized in terms of water absorption, apparent porosity, bulk density, modulus of rupture (MOR) and phase analysis via X-ray diffraction (XRD). The composition of 40 wt.% EAF slag – 30 wt.% ball clay – 10 wt.% K-feldspar – 20 wt.% silica (10F_20S), fired at 1150°C showed the lowest water absorption, apparent porosity and highest bulk density due to enhancement of densification process during firing. However, the same composition of ceramic tile (10F_20S) had the highest MOR at lower firing temperature of 1125°C, contributed by presence of the highest total amount of anorthite and wollastonite reinforcement crystalline phases (78.40 wt.%) in the tile. Overall, both the water absorption and MOR of all ceramic tiles surpassed the requirement regulated by MS ISO 13006:2014 Standard (Annex G: Dry-pressed ceramic tile with low water absorption, Eb ≤ 0.50 % and minimum MOR of 35 MPa).