APPRAISAL OF MALAYSIAN AND NIGERIAN CRUDE KAOLIN RESOURCES FOR HEAT RESISTANCE APPLICATIONS

Abstract

At present, there has been a major increase in the development of green technologies and with
the shortage of fossil energy around the globe, qualitative and quantitative improvement and
effective application of natural resources are most keenly wished for, in terms of both the
fundamental and industrial stands. In this study, we reported an effort towards
internationalizing our endowed national resources through a comparative characterization of
Malaysian (M-kaolin) and Nigerian (N-kaolin) crude kaolinite resources. The two kaolin
resources hold similar crystallite structures with different thermal and pore size distribution
properties, and the N-kaolin is containing a visible trace of Illite which presumably influenced
the crystallinity of the crude kaolin. Thus, N-kaolin is highly promising for refractory
applications.