Abstract

Waste materials such as fly ash and bottom ash are increasingly being produced in high volumes owing to the dependence of numerous industries on coal-derived electricity.  Even though a small fraction of these materials are being used in the construction industry, large volumes are dumped in landfill and man-made lakes, which negatively impacts on the environment and health.  Work at UNSW on waste material utilisation has resulted in the development of a patented materials and processing technology for the fabrication of interconnected and percolated mullite fibre network using aluminosilicate waste materials.  Importantly, these materials have shown remarkably outstanding long-term stability at high temperatures, which makes it ideal for use as refractory ceramics.  Furthermore, the characteristics of these unique ceramics can be further tailored to create ceramic composites with outstanding corrosion resistance and thermal shock properties, through careful control of chemical additions and processing conditions.