Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol.92, No.7, 1540-1546, 2009
SiO2-PbO-CaO-ZrO2-TiO2-(B2O3-K2O), A New Zirconolite Glass-Ceramic System: Crystallization Behavior and Microstructure Evaluation
Zirconolite (CaZrTi2O7) is a mineral that has a high containment capacity for actinides and lanthanides and is considered to be a good candidate for the immobilization of radioactive wastes. The glass-ceramic technique seems to be a very suitable and convenient method to produce zirconolite crystals by precipitating them in a specific glass matrix. In this study, development of a new zirconolite-based glass-ceramic belonging to SiO2-PbO-CaO-ZrO2-TiO2-(B2O3-K2O) system was investigated. The presence of PbO, together with B2O3 and K2O, allowed the preparation of a X-ray diffraction (XRD) amorphous glass with a relatively high concentration of ZrO2 and TiO2, which was successfully converted to a glass-ceramic containing 34 wt% of zirconolite after heating at 770 degrees C for 4 h. Differential thermal analysis, XRD, scanning electron microscope, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to determine the crystallization conditions, identify the crystallized phases, determine their compositions and quantities and observe and analyze the microstructures. The zirconolite crystals showed a platelet morphology with a monoclinic structure characterized by a=1.246 nm, b=0.7193 nm, c=1.128 nm, and beta=100.508 degrees.