Ceramics & more

• Ceramics - group of hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials
• Clay ceramic - high compressive strength, bricks can be used for building. eg bricks, china and porcelain
• Glass - transparent, strong and a good thermal insulator, which makes it useful for windows.

  Examples are:

  soda-lime glass - made by melting a mixture of sand, sodium carbonate, and limestone, then allow liquid to cool and solidify.

  Borosilicate glass - made by heating sand with boron trioxide. Much higher melting point than soda-lime glass.
• Composites - two or more materials with different properties, that have been combined to produce a material with more desirable properties.
• Composites are mostly made from:

  The reinforcement - long solid fibres or fragments

  The matrix - which binds the reinforcement together. Usually something that starts soft and then hardens.
• Polymers - large molecules made up of many monomers joined together. Properties: flexible, easily shaped, and good insulators of heat and electricity.