Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka
  • 2 Universiti Sains Malaysia
MyJurnal

Abstract

Glass-ceramics are a group of materials that takes advantage of the various glass-forming methods before they are subsequently heat-treated in a controlled manner to effect nucleation and crystallization to produce crystalline materials. The production of glassceramic materials is to overcome the low mechanical strength in pure glassy materials. In this work, a study on the crystallisation of a soda-lime-silica glass was undertaken to ascertain how the processing parameters affect the crystallization of such glasses, viz. either via a single or two-step heat-treatment procedure, as well as the effect of soaking duration at the heat-treatment temperature. A soda-lime-silica glass system was chosen because the raw materials for producing such glasses are readily available and can be considered to be the cheapest. The glass produced was examined by thermal analysis to determine the nucleation and crystallization temperatures before they were heat-treated using a single-step and a two-stage heat-treatment procedures. The resultant glassceramics produced were characterized using x-ray diffraction as well as by scanning electron microscopy. The results thus obtained showed that a two-stage heat-treatment procedure is more successful in producing a well-crystallized glass-ceramic product.