The disclosure relates to tiles or slabs comprising a fired ceramic material which has a chemical composition with a particular combination of oxides; to a method for the manufacture of said tiles or slabs; and to the use thereof for construction or decoration applications.

Sintered product having a relative density of greater than 90%, with, to more than 80% of the volume thereof, a stack of flat ceramic platelets, the assembly of the platelets having a mean thickness of less than 3 μm, having a width of greater than 50 mm, and including more than 20% of alumina, as a percentage on the basis of the weight of the product. The width of the product is the largest dimension measured in the plane in which the length of the product is measured, along a direction perpendicular to the direction of the length. The length of the product is the largest dimension thereof in a plane parallel to the general plane in which the platelets extend.

The present disclosure includes proppants and methods of making the proppants. The proppants herein may contain titanium dioxide, silicon dioxide, and/or aluminum dioxide. Also included in the present disclosure are methods of using the proppants to treat a reservoir.

Coated zirconia fine particle containing a zirconia fine particle and a coating layer coating the surface of the fine particle. The coating layer includes one or more metal elements selected from Mg, Ca, Al and rare-earth elements, and the coated zirconia fine particle has an average particle size of 3 to 100 nm and a specific surface area of 20 to 500 m.sup.2/g.

The invention relates to a method for producing a ceramic moulded body, comprising the following steps: a) producing a green body containing ceramic material, binding agents and an organic pore forming agent; b) heating the green body to a temperature higher than the sublimation and/or decomposition temperature of the pore forming agent; c) burning the green body to form a ceramic moulded body. According to the invention, the binding agent comprises polyglycols and fumaric acid.

According to the present invention, a dense composite material includes titanium silicide in an amount of 43 to 63 mass %; silicon carbide in an amount less than the mass percentage of the titanium silicide; and titanium carbide in an amount less than the mass percentage of the titanium silicide. In the dense composite material, a maximum value of interparticle distances of the silicon carbide is 40 μm or less, a standard deviation of the interparticle distances is 10 or less, and an open porosity of the dense composite material is 1% or less.

Setter plates are fabricated from Li-stuffed garnet materials having the same, or substantially similar, compositions as a garnet Li-stuffed solid electrolyte. The Li-stuffed garnet setter plates, set forth herein, reduce the evaporation of Li during a sintering treatment step and/or reduce the loss of Li caused by diffusion out of the sintering electrolyte. Li-stuffed garnet setter plates, set forth herein, maintain compositional control over the solid electrolyte during sintering when, upon heating, lithium is prone to diffuse out of the solid electrolyte.

Methods for making densified carbon printed articles from carbon powder are described. Three-dimensional binder jet printing is used to make a printed article from the carbon powder. The printed articles are infiltrated with pitch and may be heated to graphitize at least a portion of the pitch to provide a near net shape densified carbon printed article.

The present invention provides a high thermal conductive silicon nitride sintered body having a thermal conductivity of 50 W/m.Math.K or more and a three-point bending strength of 600 MPa or more, wherein when an arbitrary cross section of the silicon nitride sintered body is subjected to XRD analysis and highest peak intensities detected at diffraction angles of 29.3±0.2°, 29.7±0.2°, 27.0±0.2°, and 36.1±0.2° are expressed as I.sub.29.3°, I.sub.29.7°, I.sub.27.0°, and I.sub.36.1°, a peak ratio (I.sub.29.3°)/(I.sub.27.0°+I.sub.36.1°) satisfies a range of 0.01 to 0.08, and a peak ratio (I.sub.29.7°)/(I.sub.27.0°+I.sub.36.1°) satisfies a range of 0.02 to 0.16. Due to above configuration, there can be provided a silicon nitride sintered body having a high thermal conductivity of 50 W/m.Math.K or more, and excellence in insulating properties and strength.

Provided is a SiC-coated carbon composite material including a graphite base material and a CVD-SiC coating covering the graphite base material. A porosity of a core part of the graphite base material is 12 to 20%, and a SiC-infiltrated layer extending from the CVD-SiC coating is included in a periphery of the core part of the graphite base material. The SiC-infiltrated layer is constituted of a plurality of regions arranged such that Si content becomes smaller stepwise in an order from a first surface on the CVD-SiC coating side toward a second surface on the graphite base material side.