Resistencia mecánica y porosidad de soportes para pavimentos y revestimientos cerámicos obtenidos con arcillas de Castellón

We have tried to establish a relationship between the raw material and the mechanical properties of ceramic pieces subjected to different firing processes, so under the determinant of the thermal process we have done a follow up on the petrogenetic process that the manufacture of ceramics represents. This is evaluated in terms of the mechanical behaviour of the ceramic tile bodies, which have been normalised and submitted to tests for flexion. The principal objective is to be able to indicate what the optimum firing temperature for each sample is, and to determine what it is in the ceramic body which offers the greatest resistance when a specific force is applied. The study of the texture of the ceramic body will be considered mainly in relation to the existent porosity, as well as its distribution, which conditions its characteristics and specifications. The relation between porosity and the parameters that describe the porous texture of the ceramic tile pieces studied is complicated because of the fact that these have many pores with a complex and irregular spatial disposition, with a broad distribution of forms and sizes, and as such they do not fit into established empirical equations.Se ha tratado de establecer la relación entre materia prima y propiedades mecánicas de piezas cerámicas sometidas a procesos de cocción diversos. Bajo el condicionante del proceso térmico se realiza un seguimiento del proceso petrogenético que representa la fabricación cerámica y se evalúa a través del comportamiento mecánico de probetas cerámicas normalizadas y sometidas a ensayos de flexión. El objetivo principal es poder indicar cuál es la temperatura óptima de cocción para cada muestra y determinar cuál es aquélla en que la probeta cerámica ofrece una mayor resistencia al aplicarle una determinada carga. El estudio de la textura de la matriz cerámica es de gran interés en relación con la porosidad, asi como su distribución, que condiciona sus características y aplicaciones. La relación existente entre la porosidad y los parámetros relacionados con la textura porosa es muy compleja debido a la distribución irregular de formas y tamaños de poro, que no se ajusta a ninguna ecuación empírica establecida, pero aun así hay aproximaciones teóricas que pueden permitir prevenir la relación entre la porosidad y las propiedades mecánicas

Characterization of the settleable and suspended particles to solve an air quality problem

The main objective of this study is to characterise the settleable and suspended air particles of an industrialized area close to a population centre as a result of the com-plaints lodged by citizens to the town council of this local-ity. An exhaustive control of the levels of particles was performed using a PS Standard Britannic captor and a model PS1 high precision Retsch cascade impactor which is a seven-stage cascade impactor mounted on a standard low-volume air sampler. Then, air samples were analysed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to know the structure, morphology and composition of the particulate matter and to identify their sources of ori-gin. Regarding the aerosol collected by the cascade im-pactor, the highest values were located in the range of fine particles (50% of particulate matter was distributed in the particle range of 1 to 4 ?m, and 70% in particles lower than 4 ?m). On the other hand, the main components identified in the samples were mineral particles originating from natu-ral emission and the ceramic industry, glass particles and carbonaceous amorphous matter (mainly carbon), plus small quantities of S, Ca and Na from combustion proc-esses (traffic, fossil fuel combustion, high-temperature in-dustrial processes). According to the mineralogical analysis, quartz, cal-cite and illite/mica are the most common compounds in samples, but dolomite, K-feldspar, plagioclase and kaolin-ite/ chlorite are also common. The mineralogy composition of the atmospheric particulate samples obtained in the study area was compared with two other areas to evaluate the influence of industries based on mineral raw materials