The fabrication of well densified wollastonite with smooth appearance by direct sintering method is still a challenge due to the competitive behaviors between sintering and crystallization. In this study, the coarser glass frits with a size of 1-4 mm are subjected to heat treatment at different temperatures. An attempt of integrating differential thermal analyzer with a slag melting temperature characteristic tester was exploited to monitor the heat and geometry changes during the heating. The results showed that the addition of CaF2 can significantly promote the crystallization of wollastonite at 940 °C, while hindering the sintering ability. At higher temperature, the increase of CaF2 acts as flux and favors the formation of eutectics, leading to a decline in the precipitation amount of wollastonite. The predominated liquid sintering brought fast shrinkage. It was found out that high content of CaF2 narrows the dense sintering temperature range and results in uneven surfaces. In order to obtain wollastonite glass-ceramics with smooth appearance, the maximum content of CaF2 in sintering glass-ceramics should be limited to 2 wt.%.
Keywords: crystallization; fluoride; glass-ceramics; sintering.