Effects of Diboron Trioxide on Zinc Silicate-Based Glass-Ceramic Derived from Waste Soda Lime Silica for Potential Phosphor Materials Application

Over the last few decades, researchers have developed great deals of interest focusing on the fabrication and synthesis of zinc silicate-based glass-ceramic. However, using waste materials as precursors for the fabrication is yet another milestone in waste management. Thus, in this study, zinc silicate glass-ceramic was fabricated using sola lime silica (SLS) glass waste as a source of silicon. The series of precursor glass in the  system was prepared by the conventional solid-state melt-quench technique through a controlled crystallization process. The physical, structural, and optical properties of the glass system were obtained by density measurement, X-Ray diffraction, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, respectively.  The density of the   glasses series was observed to be decreasing with the increment of  content. The XRD spectra of the   samples with 0 and 0.01 wt.% , exhibits major diffraction peaks attributed to the ZnO phase in the glass matrix.  However, as  content  increased, the precursor glass sample shown by the XRD spectra depicted a broad halo characteristic, which reflected the properties of amorphous glass that were observed at the composition of 0.05 wt.%  From FTIR spectra, the bands at 500, 688, 902 and 1243  can be associated with stretching vibrations of ZnO4 and Si-O-B bending vibrations, stretching vibration of the B–O bonds in the  units, and modes of boron–oxygen triangular units. The intensity of the IR band increases with increasing percentage of . The UV-Vis analysis of the samples with 0 and 0.01 wt.%  demonstrates crystalline hump and varies at 370 nm. It was observed that the addition of B2O3 to the ZnO-SLS glass network caused the glassy amorphous state with an absence of a sharp absorption edge at 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15 wt.% B2O3.The  system  shows increase in band gap when the composition of   increased. When  serves as a modifier, the number of NBOs will increase, and this will cause the expansion of glass network. The zinc silicate-based glass-ceramic produced has been classified to be a semiconductor due to the wide optical band gap energy obtained and may have key potential applications for future LED and other optoelectronic lighting devices.         &nbsp