A low-clay version of fine translucent china was designed to have desired properties and acceptable behaviour during manufacture. Low-clay contents of 10 to ISw/o were employed to reduce the deterious effects of preferential clay particle alignment and its adverse effect on colour. For example, alignment of clay particles in cast wares causes anisotropic drying and firing shrinkages and these cause distortion. Replacing clay with a pre fired body with low Fe and Ti contents, as in the present case, allowed a very white material to be produced. The prefired body was made with calcium carbonate, aluminium trihydroxide, quartz and a small fluxing addition of an hydrated magnesIUm carbonate. Desification of a whiteware is enhanced by increasing volume fraction of the viscous liquid and reducing by its viscosity. Both of these also enhance sagging. Consequently, compositional change cannot on its own lead to the favourable combination of high density, required to give translucency, with little sagging, that will allow wares to be fired without significant distortion. It was found by trail and error that use of finer particles reduced the sagging occurring in the densification heat treatment and enhanced densification. This finding allowed the body to be designed so that it densified without sagging excessively. After establishing this important result, an iterative approach was employed to produce a ware that was very white, translucent, had the required thermal expansion coefficient for glaze fitting, shrank acceptably during the first firing and did not sag during the second firing that stimulated glost firing. The finding on sagging was applied to an anorthite/mullite porcelain body that was under development. This body was also made with a low-clay content and the same prefired body. This whitware has potential to replace bone china and hard porcelain for use in the servere service conditions of hotels and restaurants. It has a higher fracture toughness than hard porcelain but has the same scratch resistant glaze and is more resistant to thermal shock. The sagging of the anorthite/mullite porcelain was substantially reduced while the body was densified. This was achieved by using a combination of finer particles and a reduction in the liquid-phase content that developed during firing.

Inkjet printing has generated considerable interest as a technique for the patterning of functional materials in the liquid phase onto a substrate. Despite its high promise, the phenomena associated with inkjet printing remain incompletely understood. This research project investigates inkjet printing of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as a possible method for the fabrication of cellulose micropatterns. CNCs were prepared from wood pulp by H₂SO₄ hydrolysis and characterized in terms of length, width, and thickness distributions by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and dynamic light scattering. Aqueous CNC suspensions were characterized in terms of shear viscosity with a rheometer. Glass substrates were cleaned with a detergent solution, aqua regia, or a solvent mixture, and characterized in terms of surface chemical composition, surface free energy, polarity, roughness, ζ-potential, and surface charge distribution in air by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, contact angle measurements, AFM, streaming potential, and scanning Kelvin probe microscopy (SKPM). Additionally, poly(ethylene glycol)-grafted glass substrates were prepared and characterized in terms of surface free energy, polarity, and roughness. Aqueous CNC suspensions were printed in different patterns onto the different glass substrates with a commercial, piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet printer. Inkjet deposited droplet residues and micropatterns were analyzed by AFM, scanning electron microscopy, and polarized-light microscopy. At low CNC concentrations (0.05 wt %), inkjet-deposited droplets formed ring-like residues due to the "coffee drop effect". The "coffee drop effect" could be suppressed by the use of higher CNC concentrations. The resulting dot-like droplet residues exhibited Maltese cross interference patterns between crossed polarizers, indicating a radial orientation of the birefringent, elongated CNCs in these residues. The observed Maltese cross interference patterns represent unprecedented indirect evidence for a center-to-edge radial flow in drying droplets. The degree of definition of the micropatterns depended strongly on the surface properties of the glass substrates. Well-defined micropatterns were obtained on aqua regia-cleaned substrates. In addition to the surface free energy and polarity, other factors seemed to play a role in the formation of the inkjet-printed micropatterns. If these factors can be identified and controlled, inkjet deposition of CNCs could become an attractive method for the fabrication of cellulose micropatterns. / Ph. D.