Alumina Silicate:
It is an oxide-like combination of aluminium, silicon and oxygen and has a major component of kaolin and clays. It offers excellent properties such as: high mechanical strength, excellent electrical insulation properties, outstanding resistance to chemical attack and long-term behaviour under open air conditions.

Bone China:
Bone China is dense and delicate. It's translucent and famous for its warm creamy white colour. It comes from England where it first appeared in the region of Stock on Trent during the eighteenth century. It contains bone ash (pulverized and burned bones of animals) which confers this ivory white colour.

Ceramic body:
A blend of several ceramic raw materials, that together form the starting material used by potters to make ceramic articles.

Ceramics materials:
A general term that includes floor tiles, tableware, sanitaryware, technical ceramics... Are inorganic and non-metallic. Moulded from a mass of raw material at room temperature, they gain their typical physical properties through a high temperature firing process.

Cordierite:
Cordierite materials are magnesium aluminosilicates, fabricated by sintering soapstone or talcum with the addition of clay, kaolin, fireclay, corundum and mullite. They have a low coefficient of thermal expansion. This is the reason for their outstanding shock resistance combined with good mechanical strength. Cordierites are found in electric heating applications and in heat engineering in general.

Earthenware:
Earthenware is a porous and robust material. It’s not translucent and can be white or coloured. Although body formulations vary tremendously between countries, and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz, and 15% feldspar. Due to its higher porosity than stoneware or porcelain, earthenware needs to be fully glazed to be watertight.

Engobes:
Clay-type raw materials that are projected onto tiles before glazing and firing. They enhance tile colour and surface.

Glaze:
Surface-covering product made of the same materials as ceramic bodies. Enamel enhances and embellishes porcelain. It enhances resistance and the colours of earthenware and stoneware.

Mullite:
Is a rare clay mineral with the chemical composition Al6Si2O13, a form of aluminium silicate. Mullite ceramics have a relatively high strength, comparatively low thermal expansion and are therefore highly resistant to thermal shock. Because of its low thermal conductivity and high resistance to corrosion, it is used as an industrial refractory material.

Nitride bonded silicon carbide (NSiC):
Is a porous material. The manufacturing process is shrinkage-free, and involves a moulded body of silicon carbide granulate and metallic silicon powder being nitrided in an atmosphere of nitrogen at approx. 1 400°C. The bending strength of NSiC his greater by approx 100%. It is more resistant to oxidisation. This material is particularly suitable for use in highly stressed kiln furniture at up to 1 500°C.

Porcelain:
Porcelain is a dense and delicate material. It’s famous for its translucency and bright white colour. Kaolinite, feldspar and quartz are the basic ingredients for most of  hard-paste porcelains.

Recystallized Silicon Carbide (RSiC):
Is a pure silicon carbide material. This material is sintered at very high temperature from
2 300°C to 2 500°C. As a result of its open porosity, RSiC possesses lower strengh in comparison to dense silicon carbide ceramics. Due to its porosity, RSiC demonstrate outstanding thermal shock resistance. It allows the manufacture of large parts that are used primarily as heavy duty kiln furniture (beams, supports, rollers....).

Silicon Carbide (SiC):
Is a compound of silicon and carbon bonded together to form ceramics. Manufactured materials are characterised by the typical properties of silicon carbide such as: very high hardness, high resistance to wear, corrosion resistance and high strengh even at high temperatures.

Silicon Infiltrated Silicon Carbide (SiSiC):
Is composed of approximately 85 to 94% SiC and correspondingly 15 to 6% metallic silicon (Si). SiSiC has no residual porosity. It exhibits very high strength and corrosion resistance combined with good thermal shock resistance and wear resistance.

Silicon Nitride:
Achieves a combination of outstanding material properties not yet reached by other ceramics: high toughness, high strength, thermal shock resistance, remarkable resistance to wear, low thermal expansion, medium thermal conductivity and good resistance to chemicals. Silicon Nitride ceramics are ideal for machine components with very high dynamic stresses and reliability requirements.

Stoneware:
Stoneware is a dense and robust material. It is made of clay with a high silica content. High temperature firing creates a vitreous phase which provides for full densification. But stoneware stays opaque unlike porcelain.

Technical ceramics:
Refers to ceramic products for engineering applications.