Abstract:

A novel kind of artificial marble has been synthesized by room temperature curing method, using oil shale ash and unsaturated polyester resin as the main raw materials, assisted by curing agent and accelerating agent. The effects of physicochemical properties on the performance of as-prepared samples have been investigated systematically ,including the proportion of raw materials, the content of curing agent and accelerating agent, curing time, the type of resin and packing size. According to experiment, the optimized formulation of synthesizing artificial marble is identified. The optimized formulation of grass roots
 is unsaturated polyester resin 1 20%-27％, initiator agent 0.5%-2.25％, accelerating agent 0.5%-1.5％, oil shale ash 50%-70％, calcium carbonate powder 5%-20％; The optimized formulation of surface is unsaturated polyester resin 1 25%-30％, initiator agent 0.5%-2.0％, accelerating agent 0.5%-2.0％, aluminum hydroxide 40%-50％, calcium carbonate powder 20%-30％.Under the optimized formulation and technological conditions, the artificial marbles synthesized have artistic appearance and the properties accord with national standards. The compression strength is 79 MPa,the bending strength is 7.4 MPa and the radiation specific activity is 0.67(I_Ra), 0.45(I_r).

Key words: oil shale, ash, unsaturated polyester resin, marble, accelerating agent