Ceramics are diverse materials with crystalline structures and insulating properties. Raw materials include silicates, metals, and compounds like carbon and sulfur. Ceramics are used for pottery, superconductors, building materials, and dental replacements, among others. The manufacturing process involves compression, shaping, and firing at high temperatures.
The raw materials for ceramics span a fairly wide range due to the fact that ceramics itself is a diverse group of materials. Generally, ceramics share the physical properties of being crystalline in structure and acting as thermal and electrical insulating materials, and these properties are derived from several major elements in nature. Pottery, ceramics and bricks contain the raw materials for ceramics in the form of crystalline metals such as aluminum mixed with silicate compounds such as quartz, feldspar and mica, which are composed largely of silicon dioxide. These types of raw materials are generally referred to as clay, making up over 90% of the mineral compounds on the Earth’s surface that form into rocks.
Making insulators for high temperatures and advanced electronic applications, however, can include ceramic feedstocks such as carbon, nitrogen and sulfur. Advanced superconducting research also relies on raw materials for ceramic compounds because ceramics tend to switch from naturally occurring insulating properties to superconducting properties at very low temperatures. Common superconducting ceramics are based on copper oxide compounds, but many rare earth metals such as niobium and yttrium are also used. These metals along with silicates are often bonded together in the production of ceramics such as with yttrium, aluminum and garnet as a silicate compound. A recent 2002 discovery of a unique superconducting ceramic was a compound of plutonium, cobalt and gallium, or PuCoGa5.
The manufacture of ceramics usually involves a four-step process in which a powder comprising metals, silicates, or other compounds such as carbon and sulfur is compressed into a solid under intense pressure and then worked into the desired shape. Making the pottery therefore involves firing the product at a temperature between 2,850° and 3,100° Fahrenheit (1,570° to 1,704° Celsius) for between 12 and 120 hours. During this process, the volume of the ceramic part compresses by approximately 20%, which facilitates a final step after machining the part with a diamond tool or other precise equipment to fit to desired tolerances and specifications.
The pottery business encompasses a wide area of commercial interest, from widespread use as decorative porcelain tableware and cooking vessels and works of art to the manufacture of ceramic knife blades, building materials such as pipes and floor and wall tiles at high temperatures for turbojet engine blades. Dental replacements such as dental bridges are also made from ceramic. Because each of these products has unique tolerances, appearance, and structural requirements, raw materials for ceramics can come from a long and complex list of ingredients.
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