Saint-Gobain Ceramic Materials
Ceramics
Do you think of vases and dinner plates when you hear the word “ceramic”? Well, at Saint-Gobain Ceramics R&D those are the furthest from our minds. Ceramics are replacing traditional materials in many applications because of the unique properties they deliver. Our research teams are at the front lines of innovation in this field. Industrial, technical, functional and advanced ceramic materials can take a variety of shapes and perform many functions. Properties can be tailored by selecting and blending the raw materials, processing and shaping the form using custom mold tooling, and then densifying the green body through a precise high-temperature firing process in a controlled atmosphere.
Ceramic Materials Teams at Saint-Gobain Research North America
HIGH PERFORMANCE REFRACTORIES
The High Performance Refractories (HPR) R&D team develops innovative ceramic solutions for a wide array of applications including ballistic armor, wear-resistant materials, structural ceramics, and ceramic systems. One of our key areas of research is the development of next generation ceramics for military body armor that achieves the highest level of ballistic protection with significantly lighter weight.
We're also developing oxidation-resistant barrier coatings for silicon carbide that will significantly increase high-temperature performance in extreme environments and meet the requirements of next-generation energy technologies. This work had been funded in part with an IDEAS award from the US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E.
Other focus areas include the development of new refractories and ceramics with improved thermal shock resistance, creep performance, abrasion, and wear resistance.
SEFPRO
SEFPRO is the only refractory group worldwide fully dedicated to the Glass Industry. For more than 85 years, SEFPRO has been collaborating with our customers, who are among the most innovative glassmakers in the world.We are very proud to contribute to their success through the development of new refractory materials manufactured by a variety of ceramic processes. Our materials are used as structural elements of the glass furnaces and operate at temperatures that can exceed 1600 °C, with strong temperature gradients, and in contact with aggressive glasses and vapors. Intense R&D efforts continuously improve the performance of glass furnaces by delivering extended lifetime and near-zero refractory glass defects while contributing to a cleaner environment.
As part of the SEFPRO global R&D network, the Saint-Gobain Research North America SEFPRO team provides support to our West Virginia plant and to our worldwide customers with a strong focus on reinforcement fiber glass and display glass industries. Our current R&D Project portfolio focus on these two main targets, and our research approach combines the benefit of extended experimental testing and the development of scientific expertise in material characterization, nonlinear thermomechanics, thermochemistry, and forming and sintering of ceramics.
SPECIALTY GRAINS AND POWDERS
The Grains and Powders R&D team comprises multiple businesses focused on developing innovative ceramic solutions for a broad range of applications.
Speciality Grains and Powders:
- Saint-Gobain Abrasive Materials, the world’s leading manufacturer of specialty grains and powders for grinding, blasting, lapping and polishing applications, offers highly-engineered abrasive materials for the demanding requirements of the aerospace, automotive, construction, electronics, energy, semiconductor and steel industries.
- Saint-Gobain Surface Conditioning combines formulation knowledge and material science expertise to transform raw materials into engineered particles, compounds and slurries that optimize surface conditioning processes in technically demanding applications.
- Saint-Gobain Boron Nitride products are manufactured as powders, solid finished components and blanks, aqueous coatings, as well as solid source dopants for a variety of industries, including aerospace, automotive, ceramic manufacturing, electronics, semiconductors, metal working and cosmetics.
- Saint-Gobain Coating Solutions applies our material science and processing expertise to develop innovative materials and solutions for a wide range of coating technologies, including Thermal Spray, Hardfacing, Magnetron Sputtering and EB-PVD.
Saint-Gobain NorPro:
NorPro is the leading supplier of custom catalyst carriers, bed topping media, support media, mass transfer media and support assemblies, and regenerative thermal oxidation packings and ceramic proppants.
Focus on:
Steam Oxidation Resistant Ceramics for SiC (silicon carbide) Protection
This study evaluates the recession behavior of Ta2O5 (tantalum oxide) in high temperature steam for potential use as an environmental barrier coating for silicon carbide (SiC) in slow flow regimes (0.3 m/s) for applications such as tubular reactor vessels in energy and chemical processing fields. Ta2O5 requires stabilization to limit cracking from a volumetric phase change at 1400ᵒC, and the CTE of the stabilized compound closely matched SiC, making it a good candidate as a protective coating. However, the performance in steam at 1500ᵒC was only marginally better than SiC at 5 atm pressure and was somewhat worse at 1 atm.