Effect of different sand contents on mambong pottery

There are many several types of potteries in Malaysia which are Sayong pottery in Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Terenang pottery in Tembeling Pahang, Sarawak pottery and Mambong pottery in Kuala Krai. Most potters produce the pottery by using slip casting method since it was the easiest method to achieve a required shape. The objective of this research was to investigate the effect of the sand contents on Mambong pottery since the Mambong potters add the sand merely based on their experiences and assumption. The samples were characterized and the tests were divided into raw material characterization and fired sample characterization. In this research, the clay from Mambong village was sieved and controlled below 250 µm. The clay was mixed with water and the coagulant. 0.7 wt % sodium silicate was added. The water was added and mixed together in different composition which labelled as SO, S5 and S10 with composition of 0 wt %, 5 wt % and 10 wt % sand. The clay slip was left for 24 hours to make the clay aging really well and then poured into a mould. Next day, the clay slip which was already dried up was removed from the mould and it can be classified as green body. The green body samples were fired at 1100 °C with heating rate of 8 °C per minute in the furnace. For raw materials characterization, tests that have been done were X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to identify the element composition, phase identification and particle morphology. For XRF, result indicated high amount of iron oxide was detected instead of other elements such as Si02, Fe203, Al2 03, T102, CaO, NaOH, KO, P4010 and MgO. XRD results show that each raw material has different composition which were sand was 35 wt % in Si and clay was 47 wt % in feldspar. For fired sample characterization, with the addition of more sand, the firing linear shrinkage, density, and MOR were decreases. For morphology observation, the pores can be seen on the sample surface, and the amount of pores was increases at higher sand contents. As the conclusion, the addition of sand did not contribute to improve the Mambong properties.