Question: Where do you get ceramic from?

Alex Leide answered on 21 Nov 2019:

What we call “traditional ceramics” are made from things we dig out the ground. Certain minerals can be used to make pottery and porcelain. This is like you would use for making plates and mugs or toilets, that type of ceramic. “Advanced ceramics” are much purer, and the raw materials for these are normally made in labs or factories by purifying something dug out the ground, or reacting different chemical together to make a new type of ceramic powder. Once we have a powder, this is mixed with something sticky and pressed into a shape. Then this is “cooked” in a furnace, normally at more than 1500 Celsius. All the powder particles stick together to make a finished ceramic. We might use this for parts of a jet engine or rockets, nuclear reactors, bullet proof armour, cutting tools… lots of interesting things