Crystallization mechanism of glass-ceramics prepared from stainless steel slag

Glass-ceramics have been prepared by using stainless steel slag, fly ash and coal fly ash that were fig-obtained from industrial solid waste. The crystallization behavior and mechanical characterization of the glass-ceramics with different (CaO + MgO)/(SiO2 + Al2O3) content ratios were studied. While the basicity decreases from 1.2 to 0.9 cm−3, the bridge oxygen content increases from 1.18 × 1021 to 1.34 × 1021 cm−3. According to the deconvolution of Raman spectra, the relative abundance of the stretching of Si–Onb bond (Qn units) can be obtained. The increase in the Q3 units dominates the polymerization in the process of decreasing basicity. This change in bonding is demonstrated to lead to polymerization of the glass network and the increase in crystallization activation energy from 336.0 to 360.7 kJ·mol−1. The results demonstrate that the production of the glass-ceramics from industrial steel slag, fly ash and coal fly ash is cost-effective and offers advantages over other production methods.