Ceramic Trends galleries
Ferro is involved in the research of materials, colors, sizes, design, as well as understanding the profile of the consumer for the years to come. The requirements of consumers, and of those who purchase ceramic tiles, are evolving at a faster rate than in the past.
Colors
Ferro is the largest supplier of ceramic stains in the world and the tile business absorbs a great part of them.
Stains for Glazes: Ferro has developed its stain range in step with the technological advances that have revolutionized ceramic tile production, and the desire to adapt to the specific needs of each and every client has always been their motivation.
Print Colors: Ferro presents its exclusive new Print Color range, printing colors especially designed to work with high definition rotary screen printing. The range offers the maximum color intensity and total integration with any fast cycle glaze.
Fast Color: New product line for dry-coloring atomized porcelanic gres through the press.
Intensity Stains for Color Matching Systems: The series consists of intense colored stains with controlled particle size distribution. This allows for a considerable reduction in preparation and storage times for the numerous screen printing pastes commonly used in the ceramic industry, whatever production and decorating technologies are selected.
Sanitary Dispersible Stains: Ferro offers an extensive variety of sanitary stains that complement your ceramic production and represent the cutting edge in new technology.
Stains for porcelain stoneware: Throughout history the ceramist has colored ceramic material. However, as new firing techniques require different body mixes, the traditional metallic oxides would not produce the required results anymore. For this reason new metallic oxide compound-based stains have been developed.
Soluble Salts: Ferro`s soluble salt colors are a new generation of liquid products that easily penetrate a ceramic body, which makes them ideal for decorating both polished and rustic tiles.
Frits
Ceramic frits are vitreous compounds, not soluble in water, obtained by melting and then rapidly cooling carefully controlled blends of raw materials. The frit production process allows the use of soluble raw materials consisting of fluxes (B, Na, K, Li, Pb), the dangerous properties of which are eliminated or reduced.
Glazes
Ferro offers a wide range of Ceramic Glazes for tile applications. Ferro supplies most of the world`s leading manufacturers of tiles with their ceramic coatings.
Granitoglass
Granitoglass is a new series of granulates specially developed by Ferro for the production of porcelain tiles using through-body and double-filling techniques. The range consists of three different products - transparent, white and opalescent - with three grain size distributions and micronised powders. By using external coloring technique, Ferro is able to create an infinite range of colors that faithfully reproduce natural granite and marble tones.
The compatibility of the granulates with porcelain tile mixes allows them to be used together with the micronised powders to create naturally transparent and three-dimensional effects. The sophisticated technical properties of these granules give porcelain tiles outstanding resistance to chemicals, staining and abrasion.
KERAjet® Digital Inkjet Printing on Ceramics
KERAjet is an ink-jet printing system developed by Ferro in the last few years. It is a 100% digital system applied to ceramic decoration through which you can create, modify, transmit and apply the design directly to the tile. This `no touch` printing system does not need any intermediate equipment (screens, rollers, etc.) to get the tile decorated. This process is called `variable image` system and it uses a four-color-process decoration (Cyan Magenta Yellow black) to create the finished design.
KERAjet system represents a decorative system alternative to other traditional methods and opens new opportunities to creativity in ceramics.
PBA Borate Products
Our borate products provide significant advantages to our customers because of the high concentration of B2O3 and the extremely low moisture content. The actual reductions in energy consumption and production time as well as the consistent quality of our products were the main reasons that customers chose PBA`s borate products. Due to the unique geological formation of our borate materials, Ferro borate products do not contain the sulfates and chlorides normally present in competitive offerings.
Star Dust Colored Crushed Frits for Dry Applications
Star Dust is the newest Ferro range of colored crushed frits to be used in dry applications. The range consists in 15 different colored crushed frits allowing the development of ceramic surfaces looking really `natural`. They are totally intermixable in any ratio and allow unlimited shades. The same range of colors is also available for glazes to be oversprayed and brushed.
Technical Assistance - Design and Development Center
Through our Ceramic Design and Development Center (located in the world tile capitals of Spain and Italy), Ferro will pull together all the resources you need and even send technicians from Europe to assist you. You might call it a ``SWAT`` team approach. Many of our customers call it ``indispensable.``
Third-Fire Tile Decoration
A ceramic tile is far more than just a technical artifact whose chemical and physical characteristics must conform to certain standards. First and foremost it is a work of artistic design, requiring skilful use of color and decorative elements. It makes a statement, communicating who we are and what we want to say, whether at home or at work. To aid the design process, we are now offering new ranges of third fire decoration products, including lustres and precious metals. Ferro offers a broad range of high-quality products capable of meeting a wide variety of requirements.
