Composition, Geotechnical Characteristics and the Potential for Industrial Use of Some Clay Bodies in Obudu and its Envi
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TECHNICAL NOTE
Composition, Geotechnical Characteristics and the Potential for Industrial Use of Some Clay Bodies in Obudu and its Environs, Southeastern Nigeria Christopher Iorfa Adamu
. Conleth Chuks Duru
Received: 5 August 2018 / Accepted: 13 June 2020 Ó Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Samples of clay deposits in Obudu and its environs, southeastern Nigeria were evaluated to establish their potential for industrial use. Geochemical, mineralogical and geotechnical properties were employed in assessing the suitability of the clay deposits for potential industrial uses. Mineralogical analyses reveal kaolinite as the dominant clay mineral with quartz as the dominant non-clay mineral. The physical and geotechnical properties indicate that the hydrous and marginal expansive clays are fine-grained (75 lm [ 2%), have low to medium plasticity (plasticity index 12.8–40.8%), low density (1.69 to 2.60 g/ cm3) and low linear shrinkage (4–6%) on drying and firing. Geochemical analysis shows significant amounts ([ 1.0 wt%) of SiO2, Al2O3, Fe2O3, MgO, CaO, and Na2O, and relatively low values (\ 1.0 wt%) of K2O, FeO and TiO2. The clays meet the requirements for production of building bricks, roofing tiles, local pottery products and domestic ceramic wares other than ceramic white wares. However, these low grade clays will require a high degree of refining or beneficiation to remove the
C. I. Adamu (&) Department of Geology, University of Calabar, P.O.Box 3609 UPO, Calabar, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected] C. C. Duru National Material Development Commission, Lagos, Nigeria
undesirable minerals to qualify for use in rubber, paper, paint and cosmetic industries. Keywords Obudu clay deposits Plasticity index Clay minerals Geochemical composition Beneficiation Industrial potential
1 Introduction Clays are fine grained, plastic and hydrous aluminum silicates with varying proportion of silica (Rice 1987; Aramide et al. 2014). The term is also used to refer to any fine grained particles usually less than 0.002 mm (2 microns) in diameter. In this sense, it can include clays, shales, or soil that is clay-like. Most geologists, however, refer to sheet silicates when they speak of clay minerals. Silts, although equally fine grained, do not contain clay minerals, have larger particle sizes (0.005–0.002 mm) and are usually non plastic (Seed et al. 1962). In geologic context, clays are sedimentary deposits; they are recent accumulations from weathering and breakdown of rocks. Two classes of clays are defined on the basis of their location relative to the parent rocks: (i) primary or residual; and (ii) secondary or transported or sedimentary clays (Punmia et al. 2005; Arora 2008). Clay is an important and abundant raw material that has variety of uses depending on factors such as clay
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Geotech Geol Eng
mineral constituents, non-clay mineral components, presence of organic matter, type and nature of exchangeable ions and soluble salts as well as its tex
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