Triaxial Testing of Okpella Granite with Kaolinite Material to Achieve Workable Ceramic Refractory

The use of locally sourced materials towards meeting our local needs is inevitable in this era of recession, especially in Nigeria. There is the urgent need to discourage the extreme and awkward dependence of local potters and ceramists on imported materials and ceramic items so as to profound substitute-able solutions to the challenges facing the country’s ceramic production. Local alternative to the sustenance and survival of the ceramic industry is paramount especially to the developmental and technological growth of our economy. It is this quest that necessitated the need for a research development and documentation of locally sourced refractory materials using three materials namely Granite, Ball Clay and Kaolin. These were compounded to derive working formula for a workable refractory in ceramic production, after a series of tests on different formulae. The result analyses from the Centre for Energy Research and Training, (CERT) Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria shows a relatively high percentage of refractoriness as found in Silicon Dioxide which in Granite was 50.7 percent, Ball Clay 61.2 percent and Kaolin 42.4 percent.