Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ARABIAN JOURNAL FOR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, cilt.49, sa.8, ss.1-18, 2024 (SCI-Expanded)
It is important to utilize the raw colemanite (RC) mineral, which has abundant reserves in the world, and to reduce its particles
to smaller sizes for nanotechnology. However, not only the particle size of the produced colemanite powder but also its other
properties need to be elucidated. By using the Taguchi design, the RC mineral was ground in a high-energy ball mill. From
signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, the smallest average particle size was found to be 3.10 μm for the experiment E04/nano-sized
amorphous colemanite (NAC) powder. The characteristics of as-received RC mineral and synthesized NAC material were
investigated using laser particle size analyzer, optical microscopes, SEM–EDS, XRD, TEM, HRTEM, and TGA–DTA devices.
It was found that the NAC powder was not homogeneous, a small peak within the 300–20 nm range appeared, and d90, d50,
d10, and dmin values were, respectively, 14.6 μm, 3.08 μm, 232 nm, and 26 nm. In the XRD analysis, the pure colemanite,
calcite, and silica minerals were determined. The crystal structure of the NAC powder almost turned amorphous, and the
crystallite size of (031) peak was reduced to 7.3 nm. It was deduced that the average particle size was 8.29 nm (R2=0.86),
and the d-spacing value was 0.307 nm. This significant finding was attributed to the mobility of balls and moreover it was
interpreted with an equation. An unknown transition in TGA–DTA was referred to the calcite mineral. Finally, it is believed
that the synthesized NAC material will be beneficial to engineering studies as a natural/mineral additive.