Development of transparent glaze compositions applicable to glazed porcelain tiles

DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSPARENT GLAZE COMPOSITIONS APPLICABLE TO GLAZED PORCELAIN TILES The production of glazed porcelain tiles with natural stone pattern increases rapidly all over the world due to development of digital printing technology. In order to obtain more attractive appearance, the application of glazes, which provide a depth shiny view by forming a glassy layer on the porcelain tile surfaces, increases day by day. It is, therefore, important to develop such kind of glaze compositions for national ceramic industry since they are all imported from abroad with a considerably high cost. İt was aimed to develop fully transparent glazes that can be applied on glazed porcelain tiles produced by digital printing method. The ceramic glazes with different compositions were manufactured in laboratory scale and applied to the tile bodies. The physical properties of the glazed tiles such as transparency and glossiness, water absorption, thermal expansion, stain resistance, resistance to surface abrasion and chemical resistance were investigated with the standard glaze, which was applied to porcelain green body, comparatively. A comparable transparency, glossiness, water absorption, thermal expansion, stain, resistance to surface abrasion and chemical resistance was obtained from the glaze composition developed within this study. It was concluded that the slight distinguish was the result of limited crystallization in glaze layer. KeyWords: Digital Printing, Transparent Glaze, Crystallization, Porcelain Tile