2024-03-28T16:23:12Zhttp://digital.csic.es/dspace-oai/requestoai:digital.csic.es:10261/419122022-12-20T13:50:09Zcom_10261_31com_10261_3com_10261_89com_10261_78col_10261_410col_10261_468col_10261_457
Sánchez Muñoz, Luis
Marinova, I. T.
Fuente, Germán F. de la
Núñez, I.
Rodríguez, Miguel A.
Sanz Lázaro, Jesús
Carda, J. B.
2011-10-31T11:10:02Z
2011-10-31T11:10:02Z
2010
Qualicer'10
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/41912
The Spanish ceramic tile manufacturing sector (which also refers to raw
material suppliers and producers of bodies, glazes, frits, engobes and pigments)
is facing a most singular moment in its history. First of all, it needs to overcome
the economic downturn that started in 2008 before going on to deal with the
fierce competition from other countries emerging as competitive producers in
the post-crisis scenario. Nowadays, the sector has a more or less homogenous
character in which the different companies tend to produce very similar materials
and therefore compete for the same market. This paper proposes two alternative
but compatible road maps that provide a possible future strategy to diversify the
sector’s supply offer by planning its R&D+i to: i) achieve significant production cost
savings for standard ceramic products, and ii) to develop new specialised ceramic
materials that meet the specific cultural and practical needs of each particular
market environment. In the short term, the ideal strategy would be to develop
the first alternative in order to produce ceramic bodies at significantly lower firing
temperatures than at present, the immediate effect of which would be to reduce
glaze thickness and the amount and size of pigment particles, thereby opening the
way to mass usage of thin-film decorating techniques (such as ink jets) and even
laser techniques. In the medium and long term, the second alternative needs to
be followed, to increase the overall added value of ceramic tiles, which depends
on the skills and ingenuity of researchers and technicians alike to come up with a
wide-ranging diversity of ceramic products.
eng
openAccess
R&D+i for ceramic tiles in the 21st century: Competition, diversity, and functionality
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