Effect of aggregates of elements induced by rare earth doping on toughening of tailing-derived glass-ceramics

Tailings glass-ceramics doped with different proportion of CeO2 were prepared by conventional melts and controllable crystallization. The effect of CeO2 on the microstructure, element distribution characteristics and fracture toughness of glass-ceramics was studied in this paper. Significant change in microstructure was not observed with the addition of rare earth oxide, but the phenomenon of element aggregates begins to appear in glass-ceramics and the element enrichment of Si, Al, Na and Ce can be observed in the element aggregates. As a result, the integrity of the glass network structure can be improved and the strength of glass phase contributed to the enhancement of fracture toughness. The doping of 3.0% CeO2 achieved a remarkable improvement on fracture toughness that reached 2.86 MPa*m(1/2) with a Vickers hardness of 8.49 GPa.