A center market place for ceramic buyer and seller around the world.

Classification of Technical Ceramics

Technical ceramics can also be classified into three distinct material categories:

• Oxides: Alumina, zirconia.
• Non-oxides: Carbides, borides, nitrides, silicides.
• Composites: Particulate reinforced, combinations of oxides and non-oxides.

Each one of these classes can develop unique material properties.

Examples of Technical Ceramics

• Barium titanate (often mixed with strontium titanate) displays ferroelectricity, meaning that its mechanical, electrical, and thermal responses are coupled to one another and also history-dependent. It is widely used in electromechanical transducers, ceramic capacitors, and data storage elements. Grain boundary conditions can create PTC effects in heating elements.
• Bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide, a high-temperature superconductor.
• Boron carbide (B4C), which is used in ceramic plates in some personal, helicopter and tank armor.
• Boron nitride is structurally isoelectronic to carbon and takes on similar physical forms: a graphite-like one used as a lubricant, and a diamond-like one used as an abrasive.
• Ferrite (Fe3O4), which is ferrimagnetic and is used in the magnetic cores of electrical transformers and magnetic core memory.
• Lead zirconate titanate is another ferroelectric material.
• Magnesium diboride (MgB2), which is an unconventional superconductor.
• Silicon carbide (SiC), which is used as a susceptor in microwave furnaces, a commonly used abrasive, and as a refractory material.
• Silicon nitride (Si3N4), which is used as an abrasive powder.
• Steatite is used as an electrical insulator.
• Uranium oxide (UO2), used as fuel in nuclear reactors.
• Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBa2Cu3O7-x), another high temperature superconductor.
• Zinc oxide (ZnO), which is a semiconductor, and used in the construction of varistors.
• Zirconium dioxide (zirconia), which in pure form undergoes many phase changes between room temperature and practical sintering temperatures, can be chemically "stabilized" in several different forms. Its high oxygen ion conductivity recommends it for use in fuel cells. In another variant, metastable structures can impart transformation toughening for mechanical applications; most ceramic knife blades are made of this material.

20.01.2007. 07:38

This article hasn't been commented yet.

RSS FeedSitemap

© Copyright 2006 TheCERAMIC · Login