Firing of clays

During the firing of clay ceramic products the following physicochemical processes take place ... 

During the firing of clay ceramic pastes a number of physicochemical processes take place, which are important for the mechanical and thermal properties of the final article ... 

The word ceramics is derived from the Greek keramos, meaning solid materials obtained from the firing of clays. According to a broader modern definition, ceramics are either crystalline or amorphous solid materials involving only ionic, covalent, or iono-covalent chemical bonds between metallic and nonmetallic elements. Well-known examples are silica and silicates, alumina, magnesia, calcia, titania, and zirconia. Despite the fact that, historically, oxides and silicates have been of prominent importance among ceramic materials, modern ceramics also include borides, carbides, silicides, nitrides, phosphides, and sulfides. 

Flash, Flashing. (1) The formation, by surface fusion or vitrification, of a film of different texture and/or colour on clay products or on glass-ware. In the firing of clay products flashing may occur unintentionally it is then a defect because of its uncontrolled nature. 

Briefly d escribe processes that occur during the drying and firing of clay-based ceramic ware. 

Clays are classified into six groups by the U.S. Bureau of Mines (1) kaolin, ball clay, fire clay, bentonite, fuller s earth, and common clay and shale. About half the toimage of clays produced in the United States is in the last category. In terms of monetary value, however, ka olin accounts for about two-thirds of the doUar volume. 

In slip easting a thin slurry, or suspension, of clay in water is poured into a porous mould. Water is absorbed into the mould wall, causing a layer of clay to form and adhere to it. The excess slurry is tipped out of the mould and the slip-cast shell, now dry enough to have strength, is taken out and fired. The process allows intricate shapes (like plates, cups, vases) to be made quickly and accurately. 

Pottery, one of the earliest human-made ceramic materials, is actually an artificial form of stone, made by combining the four basic elements recognized by the ancient Greeks earth (clay), water, air, and fire. In fact pottery is made from a circumstantial or deliberately prepared mixture of clay, other solid materials known by the generic name of fillers, and water. When a wet mixture of clay and fillers is formed into a desired shape, then dried and finally heated to high temperature (above 600°C), it becomes consolidated... 

Common ancient ceramic materials often found in archaeological excavations, such as fired brick and pottery, were made mostly from a mixture of a secondary clay and fillers. The nature, composition, and properties of clay have been already discussed the nature of the fillers, the changes undergone by the clay as well as by the fillers during their conversion to ceramics, and the unique properties of ceramic materials, are reviewed in the following pages. Attention is drawn also to studies that provide information on the composition and characteristics of ancient ceramic materials. 

The generic name used to refer to ceramic objects shaped from a wet mixture of clay and fillers that is then dried and subsequently fired at high temperatures is pottery. Making pottery involves a number of working stages ... 

Stemming. The insertion, into the end of a borehole, of clay or other material which will resist the pressure of the explosive when the latter is fired. 

The discovery of the working properties of clays must have resulted in one of humankind s first expressions of representational art, roughly contemporaneous with the discovery of the colouring properties of natural pigments and their use in cave art. The additional discovery that the result of the manipulation of this art form could be rendered permanent by the use of fire must indeed have been a source of wonder. The earliest fired ceramic so far known is a small moulded figurine from Dolni Vestonice in what was Czechoslovakia, dated to approximately 26000 years BP (Vandiver et al., 1989). By approximately 10000 years ago, simple utilitarian vessels were being produced in the Near and Far East. 

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