The nucleation and crystallization kinetics of glass obtained by melting coal fly ash with additives at 1550°C have been investigated. The optimum heat treatment schedule for the glass was nucleation at 825°C for 60min before crystallization at 962°C for 4h. The activation energy for crystallization of the glass-ceramics, obtained by the DDTA result, was 280.03 kJ/mol, lower than that of glass-ceramics obtained from pure reagents. The low activation energy is caused by impurities in fly ash, serving as nucleation agent. The results of XRD and SEM show that glass-ceramics developed nano-sized spherical wollastonite.
Conversion of coal fly ash glass into glass-ceramics by controlled thermal treatment