The use of advanced ceramics is increasing year by year. While metallic and polymeric materials are replaced, due to the fact that outstanding properties, respectively property combinations give clear advantages. Unfortunately this significant material group is still not in the high focus during the training of engineers and technicians and therefore it is often difficult to convince users of the quality of these materials, as still the well-known brittleness and low strength of porcelain is seen as a barrier.

The properties of ceramic materials can be influenced by various possibilities. This is for instance possible by use of different sintering aids, use of other grain sizes and grain size distributions, other shaping and sintering processes as well as change of design. We have set ourselves a target not to offer only one material per material family to our clients, but, whenever possible, a material adjusted for the particular application. We will also work in future in close cooperation with the customers and leading universities and institutes in order to optimize the materials or rather to adapt the necessary properties. The close cooperation with the customers is necessary, as it is not enough to be well versed in ceramics, but it is also essential to know and understand the application, in order to draw an appropriate conclusion for the optimization.

Research and development take also place with public-funded projects. Due to this we have recently developed a new material for launders and other components for aluminum casting, whereby not only the wettability has been improved but also the necessary wall thickness as well as thermal conductivity have been further reduced.

At the moment we are working on 3D-printing of alumina together with an institute in Belgium, whereby we are using a crossborder development program “EarlyTech.

Please contact us if you have question regarding ceramic or usage in your application, or if you are planning the use of ceramic. We are always available for you and we will certainly find together a solution.

References to further information

• District of Euskirchen - 3,000 euros funding for company from Blankenheim (PDF, 114 KB)