Fine ceramics

The name fine ceramics is based on the grain size distribution of the hard components in the ceramic mass. This rather differs from the distribution as it is seen in the ceramic branch of industry which produces for instance bricks, the coarse ceramic industry. Another difference is that all fine ceramic products are provided with a protective and in some cases also decorative coating, a so-called glaze. In this section much attention will be paid to glazes because this technique is rather unique for fine ceramics and because it offers the possibility to explore the subject glass and some important physical and chemical properties of materials. 

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F. H. Norton, Forming Plastic Masses, Fine Ceramics Technology and Applications, Robert E. Krieger Publishing, Huntington, NY, 1978, Chapt. 10. 

Miyayama, M. and Yanagida, H. (1988) Ceramic semiconductors non-linear, in Fine Ceramics, ed. Saito, S. Elsevier (New York and Ohmsha, Tokyo) p. 275. 

Fig. 4 The high temperature strengths of representative oxide fibers including the Nextel fibers (from Bunsell AR, Berger M-H. Fine ceramic fibers. Marcel Dekker, New York)... 

Bunsell, A. and Berger, M.-H. 1999. Fine Ceramic Fibers. Dekker, New York. 

N Ichinose, ed. Introduction to Fine Ceramics. New York Wiley, 1987. 

A hybrid plasma reactor was developed for the synthesis of fine ceramic powders (59). The reactant SiCl4 was injected into a DC-arc plasma jet and decomposed completely in a hybrid plasma an RF-plasma superimposed on the DC-arc plasma. The reaction with the second reactant NH3 and/or CH4 gas, which was injected into the tail flame of the plasma, formed Si3N4 UFPs and/or Si3N4 + SiC mixed UFPs, with structures that were amorphous. 

In 751 the Perian Abbasids defeated the Chinese. Chinese prisoners introduced fine ceramics in Mesopotamia. This pottery flourished in the 9th and 10th century. 

Vb Carbonates are used, for example, in masses for fine ceramics and in glazes. Well-known examples are calcite or calcspar CaC03 which is the main component of limestone, magnesite MgC03 and dolomite CaMg[C03]2. In coarse ceramics lime is added to clay to obtain yellow-firing bricks. 

Gypsum CaS04 is used in the fine ceramic raw material mass... 

Natural clays are coloured due to pollutions of the clay minerals. After baking the colour is strongly affected by the Ca/Fe ratio. When the baking colour is not white, this is caused by metal ions with d-valence electrons (see glazings in the paragraph Fine ceramics and baking colour in the paragraph Coarse ceramics). 

Clay mostly already contains organic components which affect the plasticity in a positive way. The fine ceramics industry makes use of this fact in order to make masses more plastic, especially in the manufacture of thin-walled articles. 

In Maastricht in The Netherlands two fine ceramic factories can be found SPHINX which has three divisions SANITARY WARE, TILES and TECHNICAL CERAMICS and MOSA which produces PORCELAIN. 

In the paragraph on fine ceramics, in the item on glazings, we saw that electrons in isolated atoms are bound to the nucleus and only appear in certain orbits. Every orbit is linked to one particular energy... 

Lewis MH, Jumali MHH, Lumby RJ (1997) Nd- and Gd-doped a I [S SiAlON Ceramics. In Niihara K, Hirano S, Kanzaki S, Komeya K, Moriuaga K (eds) Ceramic Materials and Components for Engines. Japan Fine Ceramics Association, Tokyo, p 643... 

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