Ceramco: the fluidising and toughening the body modified

Fluiten fluidisers have a toughening action and can be used just like any other body fluidising agent. The underlying concept of these products is their excellent capacity to fluidise ceramic slip while at the same time increasing the mechanical strength of dried raw tiles.

Rising energy costs are prompting ceramic companies to make considerable efforts to increase the density of ceramic slips. The way to do this is to reduce the quantity of plastic clay in the formulation, which leads to a decrease in the mechanical strength of dried raw tiles. With this in mind, Ceramco conducted research aimed at fluidising and toughening the body modified by the ceramic company so as to restore the mechanical strength of the dried raw tiles. The toughener contained in Fluiten (deflocculant/toughening agent) has a strong fluidising power, allowing the content of purely fluidising component to be substantially reduced. For this reason the finished product offers economic and operating advantages compared to the use of separate fluidiser (deflocculant in the grinding stage) and toughener (Tenacer after grinding), as described in Figure 1.

The graph shows the rheology of a slip fluidised solely with fluidising agent (blue curve) and the same slip after the addition of toughening agent (red curve), which highlights the latter's fluidising power.

A study of the reduction in content of plastic clays has shown that Fluiten brings the following advantages:

• slip density higher than 30 g/l
• increase in volumes of spray-dried body per unit time
• lower production costs
• greater rheological stability of the slip.

A study of the increase in mechanical strength of the raw dried tile revealed the following advantages:

• up to 40% increase in flexural strength
• excellent rheological stability of the slip
• excellent resistance to bacteria and mould.

FIGURE 1