Ceramics industry

Ceramics manufacturing can trace its roots back to the early days of human history. The first processes developed by our ancestors have now been transformed into a highly technical ceramics industry involving numerous production processes and products. Ceramics are today much more than just ceramic pots and ceramics for construction, stoves and sanitary ware. Accordingly, the demands placed on the valves responsible for controlling the transport of the raw materials have also increased.

Technical ceramics (also called industrial ceramics) and functional ceramics are now important branches of the ceramics industry and represent highly technical sectors with lots of expertise. These highly technical products have little in common with the properties of conventional ceramics. Technical and functional ceramic products are used, for example, in environmental technology as filter elements, in biotechnology as grinding tools, in medical technology as implants or dental crowns, in electrical engineering as insulators and in the aerospace industry for heat protection.

The valves used in all areas of ceramic processing control either the transport of the raw materials or guarantee the smooth running of the transport and dosing processes during the actual production process.

Pinch valves are particularly suitable for shutting off and controlling raw materials in the ceramics industry and are already used in the preliminary stage of mining the most important raw materials for ceramics production (such as kaolin mining).
Whether producing traditional ceramic products for household use or special ceramics for various different industrial sectors, the raw materials are usually in powder form and need to be transported from the storage location to the production site.

A wide variety of substances such as aluminium oxide (Al₂O₃), zirconium oxide (ZrO₂), silicon carbide (SiC), cordierite (Mg₂Al₃), clay minerals and kaolin through to fluxes and additives need to be controlled and shut off in the production process. Due to the robust design and anti-abrasive sleeve in the pinch valves from AKO, highly abrasive / aggressive and thus tricky media found in the ceramics industry can also be handled without any problems. The especially abrasion-resistant properties of the material used for the internal rubber sleeve thus guarantee that the valve will form a reliable, tight seal even after a long service life in contact with abrasive goods and a high number of opening and closing cycles.

In addition, pinch valves can also be used as control valves in ceramic casting (slip casting). In this case, they do not control the basic raw materials but rather the liquid ceramic mass on its way to the casting mould.