Calcium sulfate whisker reinforced non-fired ceramic tiles prepared from phosphogypsum

Phosphogypsum (PG), an industrial by-product from the manufacture of phosphoric acid, can be processed into non-fired ceramic tiles by an intermittent pressing hydration process. In order to promote the practical application of the technology, calcium sulfate whisker (CSW) was used as reinforcing agent to increase the mechanical strength of PG tiles in this research. The bending strength of the resulted PG tiles with 1wt.% CSW reached 27.2MPa, a resulting increase of 80% compared to the specimen without CSW. The reinforcement of the mechanical strength is mainly attributed to the fact that, the dispersed CSW in the tile body act as "bridges" and strongly bond with gypsum crystals, thus forming a complete tighter-linked tile network.