Open Access

ARTICLE

Preparation and Study of Borosilicate Foam Glass with High Thermal Insulation and Mechanical Strength

Yiwen Zhang¹, Jianjun Xie^1,*, Minghui Sun¹, Shaolong Wang¹, Tengfei Xu^2,3, Yonggen Xu^2,3, Xiaoqing Ding^2,3, Ying Shi¹, Lei Zhang¹

1 School of Material Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
2 Huichang New Material Co., Ltd., Xuancheng, China
3 Changda Thermal Insulation Technology Co., Ltd., Xuancheng, China

* Corresponding Author: Jianjun Xie. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Renewable Material from Agricultural Waste and By-Product and Its Applications)

Journal of Renewable Materials 2023, 11(5), 2125-2141. https://doi.org/10.32604/jrm.2023.025127

Received 23 June 2022; Accepted 29 July 2022; Issue published 13 February 2023

Abstract

Foam glass is a kind of green building material that is widely used because of its excellent thermal insulation and mechanical properties. In this study, the borosilicate foam glass was fabricated by powder sintering method using recycled soda lime waste glass, quartz, and borax as the primary raw materials. CaCO₃ was used as a foaming agent and Na₂CO₃ as a flux agent. Results showed that as the quartz content decreases from 30 to 17.5 wt.% and borax content increases from 5 to 17.5 wt.%, the pore size, porosity, and thermal insulation of borosilicate foam glass increase significantly, while the compressive strength decreases slightly. When the content of quartz and borax are both 17.5 wt.%, borosilicate foam glass with outstanding performance can be prepared, whose pore distribution is uniform, mean pore size is 1.93 mm, total porosity is 83.44%, thermal conductivity is 0.0711 W/(m⋅K), and compressive strength is 2.37 MPa. Finally, the influences of foaming agent content, flux agent content, foaming temperature, and holding time on the pore structure and various properties of borosilicate foam glass were investigated by orthogonal test. According to the results, the foaming temperature has a significant effect, and appropriate foaming agent content, flux agent content, and holding time help to form a uniform pore structure, thereby improving the thermal insulation and mechanical strength of the borosilicate foam glass.

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