Spectroscopic and thermal analysis of red clay for industrial applications from Tamilnadu, India

FTIR spectroscopy is a powerful tool for assessing both chemical and mineralogical composition of the clay and fired materials. In the present study an attempt has been made to investigate the thermal transformation of red clay. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been used to find the mineralogical transformations of red clay due to firing in the range of 400–1100 °C. From this analysis, red clay has relatively well crystalline kaolinite, rich in quartz, goethite, and hematite. The increasing firing temperatures lead to the vanishing of kaolinite and the development of mullite. Mullite is developed from silica and clay mineral. Finally, in order to demonstrate the reliability of FTIR attributions, XRD and TG-DTA were performed. The results show that the FTIR technique has the potential to become applicable for the characterization of natural clay, fired clay materials and high temperature minerals.