Utilization of coal fly ash in the glass-ceramic production

Manufacturing the glass-ceramic has been proposed as a useful choice to recycle coal fly ash from power plants. In this work, a glass-ceramic of SiO2-Al2O3-Fe2O3-CaO family was synthesized by mixing 90 wt% of coal fly ash, from a power plant in west of China, with Na2O, and then melted at 1350 °C. The ceramization of the obtained glass was carried out at 770 °C for 2 h. Esseneite and nepheline were found present as major crystal phases. The produced glass-ceramic exhibited good chemical durability as well as good mechanical properties. The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) method found that the glass-ceramic was non-hazardous.