Ceramics are an excellent choice to meet new era needs.

 

Ceramics are an excellent choice to meet new era needs.

Ceramic is a very broad term, so we have to face difficulty by defining it. Ceramics are defined based on what they do not possess so in many books you might have read the definition of ceramics that they are inorganic and non-metallic rigid products. If we absolute inorganic compounds and metals so we are left with this.

Types of ceramics:-

Ceramics is one of the oldest industries of the world and it is a multifunctional material so scientists divide ceramics into two types.

·         Traditional Ceramics

·         Advance(engineering) Ceramics

Here we will have a brief account of both types of ceramics and how are they produced.

Traditional Ceramics:-

As can be understood by the name, Traditional Ceramics are those which we are using by centuries in our daily life for cooking, baking, storing liquids, and decoration purposes.

Main types of traditional ceramics are below

Earthenware:-

To produce earthenware, clay is fired twice at the temperature of (1000-1150 °C), when it undergoes heat treatment first time, clay becomes porous and slightly coarse. Now to overcome this, it is glazed by extracted and refined glass-powder.

Stoneware:-

For producing stoneware, clay is heated at the temperature of 1200 °C to produce non-porous stuff and then glazed.

Porcelain:-

Porcelain is the tough translucent white solid made by Kaolin clay (first found in China).

Properties of ceramics:-

Ø  Ceramics are electrically and thermally insulators.

Ø  Brittle.

Ø  Refractory

Ø  Oxidation resistant

Ø  Non-corrosive

Ø  Chemically stable

Applications of ceramics:-

Ceramics are broad-spectrum commercial products mostly they are used in the manufacture of cooking pots, construction, and decorative objects. Advanced ceramics are used in engineering of fridge magnets, automobiles, and electronics and after all in modern medicine for tooth implantation and as bone substitutes in orthopedic operations.

Manufacture of ceramics:-

In industries, ceramics processing is done to produce commercial products that show diversity in size, shape, complexity, molecular structure and nevertheless cost.

The raw materials for ceramics production are naturally occurring rocks and minerals (like clay) so they must undergo special conditions because, by this purity, particle size and heterogeneity are controlled. Following are the basic steps in the manufacture of ceramics:-

§  First of all, the powder is produced by the above-mentioned starting materials.

§  Then water and other additives like binders are added to generate holding properties.

§ IIn the end, they undergo heat treatment to produce a rigid product called Ceramic.

CONCLUSION:-

Ceramics are an excellent choice that is why they are being used for centuries. Developments of new processes and forming new techniques provided Ceramics with the potential to meet new era needs. Moreover, needs were seemingly impossible to meet.