Chemical and Physical Properties of Clay Mineral Kawale Seema B., Dahake Sadashiv, Sharma Aruna Department Of Environmental Geology, Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam, India Online published on 24 November, 2017. Abstract Clay is a raw material that has many uses across the different industries. The principal use of clay at Mukondeni Village is making of pots, which are based on traditional paintings of Venda and Tsonga people and are sold to tourists, businesses and local people. Although the knowledge of using raw clay for making of ceramic pots is known to many throughout the world; very little scientific studies have been conducted to establish the basic characteristics of clays for this purpose. Although all clays indicated elevated SiO and Al2O3 concentration, the RCSH had the highest (66% silica and 16.07% Al2O3) with the least LOI percentage (4.39%). On the other hand, the trace element results showed the clays to be having high concentration of Cr (±888.33 ppm), Ni (±343.30 ppm), V (±118.86 ppm) and Zn (±50.66 ppm). Among all the Mukondeni clays, the GCSH had the highest plastic index of 20; indicating that it is highly plastic than the RCSG (5) and the BCSH (6.3). It was found that the smectite content in both black and green clays are indicative of high plasticity, stickiness and low porosity compared to red clay. As a result, the two clays (black and green) were considered unsuitable for making ceramic pots and water filters since they have high potential of cracking during the drying up process. It was recommended that the potters mix the red clay with the other two clays to improve their molding and overall pots making properties. Top Keywords ceremic pots, water filters, smectite clay, characterization. Top |