Ceramics
Technology continues to evolve and provide the world with a faster, smarter and greener lifestyle. While computer interfaces, smart devices and touchscreens are often associated with technological advancement, they are only made possible through advances in physical materials. Though alumina is generally regarded for its refractory and insulating qualities, it has also been at the forefront of materials research for decades
Ceramics: Strong and Versatile
Ceramic is a term meaning “to burn,” as in burned earth, with earthenware being one of the first known applications. Today the term “ceramic” encompasses a much wider range of materials and applications.
Alumina is one of the most common materials used in ceramic applications. Its strong chemical bonds and physical stability provide superior properties in key application areas ranging from fine grained technical ceramics to wearresistant ceramics and electrical insulators.
Almatis offers the broadest portfolio of specialty calcined and tabular aluminas in the industry. Our premium aluminas are regarded for their highly consistent properties, ensuring efficient, defect-free ceramic manufacturing.
Calcined aluminas
Almatis offers a variety of unground calcined aluminas with primary crystal sizes ranging from 0.3 – 25μm. Our calcined alumina purity levels range from 99.5 - 99.8%, including normal soda (≤0.35%), intermediate soda (≤0.20%), low soda (≤0.10%) and ultra-low soda (≤0.05%) products.
Ultra-low soda calcines
The soda content of an alumina often dictates its ability to be used in a specific application. Since residual Na2O at the particle surface can become soluble and change pH and rheology characteristics, some wet processes respond better to aluminas with ultra-low soda levels. Almatis offers a number of calcined aluminas with a guaranteed Na2O content ≤0.05%, such as A 14, A 14 -325 and CT 3000 LS SG. CT 3000 LS SG is our highly reactive batch ground product that also features a low SiO2 content, which is especially critical for products that are subjected to harsh chemical or wear environments.
Continuous ground calcines
Continuous ground calcined aluminas feature broad particle size distributions, which are a blend of individual crystals and partial agglomerates. Almatis produces its continuous ground products in highly efficient ball mill-air classifier systems with a focus on controlling median particle size and +45μm residual
agglomerate content.
Batch ground reactives
Batch ground aluminas are fully ground products often used for the manufacture of technical and advanced ceramic parts. Almatis produces batch grounds with mono-modal (CT 3000 SG) and bi-modal (A 15 SG) distributions, which are suitable for use in a variety of processes. While many applications require the narrow particle size distribution of a mono-modal product, bi-modal products are used where higher green densities are needed.
Specialty tabular products
Almatis produces specialized tabular alumina fractions targeted for the investment casting, functional filler, ceramic roller, metal filtration and regeneration burner markets. Some of our tabular products are available in low iron (LI), intermediate soda (SP) and ultra-low soda (XLS) versions, or as washed products (Tabalox). We also offer a variety of spherical alumina balls in smooth (T162) and round (T160, FBA) versions for applications such as filter beds and regeneration burners.