The difference between vitrified and sintered


Saturday 18th April 2015

The top fired bar is a insight-live.com/glossary/233">translucent porcelain (made from kaolin, silica and feldspar). It has zero porosity and is very hard and strong at room temperature (because fibrous mullite crystals have developed around the quartz and kaolinite grains and feldspar silicate glass has flowed within to cement the matrix together securely). That is what vitrified means. But it has a high fired shrinkage, poor thermal shock resistance and little stability at above red-heat temperatures. The bar below is zirconium silicate plus 3% binder (VeeGum), all that cements zircon ceramics together is sinter-bonds between closely packed particles (there is some glass development from the Veegum here). Yet it is surprisingly strong, it cannot be scratched with metal. It has low fired shrinkage, low thermal expansion and maintains its strength and hardness at very high temperatures.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Zircon, Firing: What Happens to Ceramic Ware in a Firing Kiln, Fired Strength, Sintering, Vitrification, Refractory, Primitive Firing


This post is one of thousands found in the Digitalfire Reference Database. Most are part of a timeline maintained by Tony Hansen. You can search that timeline on the home page of digitalfire.com.