Investigation of The Usage of Afyon Clay in Porcelain Tile Bodies

The main raw materials used in the production of ceramic tiles are clay, kaolin, feldspar, and quartz. Despite the presence of clay deposits in the regions of , Sile/Istanbul/Turkey and Bilecik/turkey in our country, companies producing high-quality products such as porcelain tiles are importing clay from Ukraine. The Ukraine clay used in the porcelain tile bodies is preferred because of its whiteness and high plasticity. In this study, the effects of reducing the amount of Ukrainian clay in a standard porcelain tile composition and replacing it with Afyon clay were investigated. For this purpose, the Ukraine clay content was gradually reduced and 7 to 10 % of the Afyon clay were added to the standard porcelain tile body composition and prepared with traditional ceramic tile production processes. The representative bodies are fired in industrial roller kilns under fast firing cycle at 1200°C - 55 min. All physical properties of the developed bodies were tested, sintering behaviors were investigated by optical dilatometer and thermal expansion coefficient values of the bodies were determined by dilatometer. The microstructure and the phase evolution of the bodies were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). According to the results, it was found that decrease of Ukrainian clay and the addition of Afyon clay increases the water absorption and firing shrinkage values of bodies. In addition to that, the thermal expansion coefficients of the bodies are also increasing with using of Afyon clay. As a result, it has been determined that it’s possible to use Afyon clay up 7% ratio in porcelain tile body compositions with also some changes in other raw material proportions