Fabrication and Characterization of Ceramic Floor Tiles from Coal Gangue

Coal gangue was used as the main material to fabricate floor tiles in this paper. The mixture of coal gangue, quartz, feldspar and bentonite, with the weight percentage of 55, 20, 20 and 5, was wetly milled, dried, and then pressed into green compacts. The obtained compacts were sintered at 1180-1240 oC and the floor tiles were obtained. The obtained tiles were characterized by XRD, SEM, linear shrinkage, water absorption, bulk density and flexural strength. The results indicate that the tiles were composed of glassy phases, quartz and mullite phases. The phase composition, microstructure, physico-mechanical properties of the samples change with the sintering temperature. The tile sintered at 1220 oC achieves the linear shrinkage, water absorption and bulk density values of 6.18%, 0.16%, 2.45 g/cm3, respectively. Its flexural strength reaches the maximum of 92.0 MPa.