The zirconium silicate presents a high technological importance due to its physico-chemical properties, having applications in glaze and enamel ceramic industries, besides being considered one of the most important structure for ceramic pigments due to its ability to group dopants. However, for using substances with low reactivity, the kinetics of the solid state reaction is slow, stimulating the studies for the optimization of processing parameters reach an improved efficiency of this method, considered very cheap and simple. This work had as objective to study the influence of the temperature and the method of mixture in the kinetics of zircon (ZrSiO4) reaction formation from ZrO2 and SiO2. The precursors were determined, mixed by two methods: hammer mill and dry ball mill and calcined at 1300, 1400 and 1500 °C. The effectiveness of the mixture was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and the mineralogical evolution by X-ray diffraction. The results indicated an exponential relation between the rate of the reaction and the temperature, and also a dependence between the effectiveness of the mixture and the kinetics of zircon formation.
zircon; method of mixture; solid state reaction; reaction kinetics
