Instrumental Characterization of Pretoria clay soil by XRF, XRD, SEM

The products of refractory materials are used for lining furnace, incinerators and kilns among others and they have the potential of withholding high temperature with the absence of deformation. This research was aimed at concentrating on the characterization of clay soil. The sample was collected from Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, where the location of the clay sample determined to be Latitude 28.0969 south of the Equator and the longitude to be 25.5403 East of the Greenwich Meridian, methods executed are the sieve analysis, apparent porosity, XRD, XRF and SEM Analysis. Where the sieve analysis shows the exact particle size distribution (PSD), the samples were sieved by mesh sizes of 500µm, 600µm, 425µm, 212µm, 106µm, 75µm, and -75µm. The XRF detected three minerals namely Fe₂O₃, Al₂O₃, SiO_2, Nao, Mg, K₂0, Tio₂ present in the clay soil. Assessment was done to evaluate the sample and it involves the Apparent Porosity, SEM analysis, while XRD affirms that Kaolinite, Bentonite, Montmorillonite were recognized in the clay soil.