Development of transparent glaze for digital printed floor tiles

With the development of digital printing technology on tiles, especially natural stone patterned, glazed floor and tile production has been increasing rapidly all over the world in recent years. With this increase, the use of glaze, which provides depth to the surface of the ceramic tile body and creates a glossy appearance by creating a glassy layer on the surface of the tile after polishing, also increases in order to make the tiles more beautiful and interesting. After the 'Lappato' process for polishing, a chemical protective layer is applied to the glaze surface to increase the staining resistance of the glaze. With the reduction of the abrasive dimensions and the development of the 'Lappato' technique, the development of glazes compatible with this technique gained momentum. It is of great importance for our country in terms of the ceramics industry that these glazes, which are procured from abroad with high costs, supply and logistics difficulties, are developed and produced in Turkey. In this study, it was investigated that the glazes of floor tiles produced by digital printing, which are compatible with fast firing conditions and the 'Lappato' technique, can be developed and obtained in factory conditions. It is aimed to produce glazes with high wear resistance, transparent and bright appearance, which can be used in industrial conditions, by applying ceramic glazes in different compositions to 60x120x1 cm sized digitally printed tile bodies produced under factory mass production conditions. Glaze compositions were developed until the glaze recipe with the desired appearance and properties was developed. The laboratory and firing studies were carried out in the manufacturing company under industrial conditions, and the technological, thermal, microstructural and phase analyzes of the products were carried out in the Materials Science and Engineering laboratories of Eskişehir Technical University. The transparent properties, staining resistance and chemical resistance of the glazed floor tiles obtained were determined and compared with the samples to which standard (STD) trade glaze was applied, and they were found suitable for mass production.