Compositional and Structural Deficiencies Causing Failure of Local Fire Assaying Crucibles in Ghana

Abstract

Locally produced crucibles in Ghana experience dimensional failures during fire assaying of ores, therefore, even with a higher cost, imported crucibles are still the most preferred choice by laboratories in Ghana because of the stable performance of up to three cycles. Assay crucibles of locally manufactured, imported and theoretically composed were sampled and analysed via reverse engineering to identify factors that are attributed to the failure during use. Field investigation and compositional, physical and structural investigations were carried out using XRD, water boiling and SEM-EDS analyses, respectively. The results indicated that failure of the local crucible can be attributed to low mullite phase in both content and planes, which could ease the crack development and enhance the thermal stability of the crucible; non converted quartz into cristobalite, which stabilises the volume expansion coefficient during the fire assaying cycles; excess quartz content and absence of alumina content weakened the corrosion resistance against attack from the basic flux of litharge; and high porosity, allowed penetration of molten charge into the structure of crucible, leading to the dissolution of free silica content into the charge and causing structural failure. To overcome such deficiencies, higher firing temperature (~1240 °C), extra soaking time, and blending of high alumina contained clay/minerals were suggested.