Structural and Thermal Diffusivity of Sm³⁺ Doped Willemite Glass Ceramics System from Waste Materials

Abstract

This study presents the formation of the zinc silicate from amorphous silica obtained from waste rice ash, with the addition of zinc oxide nanoparticles by conventional solid-state technique. The XRD showed the sharp intensive and small peaks while FTIR results indicated very slight variations in their peaks with the increased of samarium dopant concentrations. The FESEM clearly showed the cracks of zinc silicate doped with samarium the samples. The least thermal diffusivity values from 0.2039 to 0.1392 mm2/s acquired by pure zinc silicate (willemite) sintered at 1000°C. The thermal diffusivity was increasing with dopant concentration and decreasing with the rise in temperature (27-500°C). The thermal diffusivity curves revealed the exponential decay with the pores and cracks in the samples.