Improvement of mechanical and dielectric properties of porcelain insulators using economic raw materials

Abstract The present study is aimed to develop porcelain from locally available raw materials. This porcelain was prepared from the mixture of kaolin, quartz, feldspar, and recycled waste glass. In this work, the expensive K-feldspar was substituted by recycled waste glass derived from broken car glass. The effects of recycled waste glass in partial replacement of K-feldspar for porcelain are discussed. Experimental results showed significant effects of recycled waste glass substitution and sintering temperature on physical properties. Furthermore, the microstructure observation indicated that the replacement of K-feldspar by the recycled waste glass indicates the reducing firing temperature 200 °C was achieved by 30 wt% glass addition. Moreover, experimental investigations showed excellent mechanical (micro-hardness) and insulating properties (dielectric strength) of the prepared porcelain when compared to that of traditional porcelain insulators. The Vickers micro-hardness found an increase with both glass addition and sintering temperature. Dielectric constant ( ɛ ′), dielectric loss tangent (tan  δ ) and loss factor ( ɛ ″) were measured at different frequencies. The results reveal that glass addition enhances the dielectric properties of the samples fired at 1100 °C. Finally, the best results of phase angle were obtained ∼(−89.2°) for this porcelain. These results prove that our prepared insulator is a dielectric capacitor.