Conductive ceramic composite was prepared by sintering the mixture of clay and printer toner at 1050°C and in the N 2 atmosphere. The microstructure and mineral phases of the ceramic composite were characterised by SEM, EDX, TG and XRD, and its electrical conductivity and mechanical properties were also investigated. The results show that, in the sintering process, a series of physical and chemical reactions take place, and mineral phases with excellent electrical conductivity, such as metal iron, carbon and Fe-Al solid solution material, are formed. The electrical conductivity mechanism can be explained by the percolation theory. The threshold value for electrical conductive percolation is between 3.5 and 7.0 wt-%. At the content of printer toner 10 wt-%, the volume electrical resistance of the ceramic composite is as low as 8.5 Ω cm, and the composite exhibits excellent flexural strength higher than 14 MPa.
Thermal storage concrete is prepared by using alkali-activated ground-granulated blast furnace slag as cementitious material. To improve thermal conductivity, graphite aggregate is used to replace part of the coarse aggregate, and, furthermore, polypropylene fiber is added to improve the heat resistance performance of the concrete. The compressive strength of concrete specimens before and after heating (up to 450 °C) was tested, and, furthermore, scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate the structure alteration due to heating. Results showed that the partial replacement of coarse aggregate by graphite block could obviously improve the thermal conductivity of the thermal storage concrete. At the same time, the specimen with 30% graphite aggregate replacement still exhibited good mechanical properties. The mechanism of the high residual strength was investigated.
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