June 2016 Issue | Ceramic Industry

Our June issue includes features focusing on ceramic medical/dental applications, building-integrated photovoltaics challenges and opportunities, analytical challenges, and the new OSHA silica rule. Check it out today!

Technical Ceramics Empower Medical and Dental Advancements

Advanced ceramics offer a cost-effective and high-performance substitute to traditional materials such as metals and plastics.

Geoff Randle

June 1, 2016

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In many ways, material science is driving enormous and exciting change for the medical community. Technical advancements, new applications, and product innovations are empowering industry growth and influencing new global market trends.

Materials Innovation

Developing Foldable Displays and Touchscreens

New technologies will help make flexible, three-dimensional or foldable displays an essential part of our everyday lives.

Jörg Wetterau

June 1, 2016

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Read the latest news while relaxing at home, in a café, at the beach, in the mountains or in a self-driving car on a highly flexible, rollable, and foldable touchscreen. This may sound like a pipe dream, but it could be a reality in the next five years. In fact, these flexible, three-dimensional or foldable displays could evolve to become an essential part of our everyday lives.

Exploring the Future of the Ceramic Industry

Exhibitors and attendees alike flocked to Cleveland, Ohio, for the second annual Ceramics Expo.

Susan Sutton

June 1, 2016

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Exhibitors and attendees alike flocked to Cleveland, Ohio, for the second annual Ceramics Expo, which was held April 26-28 at the I-X Center.

Niche to Mainstream: Photovoltaics Make Architecture Inroads

More efficient solar cells and new dimensions, shapes and transparency levels are helping modules become less expensive and more versatile.

June 1, 2016

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Solar modules for building skin integration are still niche products due to high costs, a lack of integration possibilities and interest on the part of architects—but this could soon change. Due to more efficient solar cells and new dimensions, shapes, and transparency levels, modules are becoming less expensive and more versatile.

Overcoming Analytical Challenges for Ceramic Materials

An experienced testing lab can identify the right technique for ceramics analysis and provide results that help boost confidence in a material's quality.

David Kluk Roxanne Skinner

June 1, 2016

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Performance is critical for today’s advanced applications of ceramics. Whether they are being used as electrical insulators or for thermal protection on a spacecraft, the failure of ceramic components can have serious, even life-threatening consequences.

Sweeping Changes in Wake of New OSHA Silica Guidelines

The brick, ceramic, advanced ceramic and glass industries are all going to be impacted by the aggressive new silica standard.

Dan Coley

June 1, 2016

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OSHA Standard 29 CFR 1910.1053 is not the first time that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set limits on crystalline silica.

Glass in Innovation

Developing Elastic Metallic Glass

USC scientists have developed a material that is incredibly hard but also elastic, making it potentially useful for applications ranging from drill bits and body armor to meteor-resistant satellite casints.

Robert Perkins

June 1, 2016

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Engineers have created a new material with an unusual chemical structure that makes it incredibly hard yet elastic. The material can withstand heavy impacts without deforming; even when pushed beyond its elastic limits, it doesn’t fracture, but instead retains most of its original strength.

record-breaking speed for optical communications in data centers

Glass Innovation

The Need for Speed in Optical Communications

PolyU researchers have achieved record-breaking speed for optical communications in data centers.

June 1, 2016

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The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has reportedly achieved the world’s fastest optical communications speed for data centers by reaching 240 G bit/s over 2 km, which is 24 times the existing speed available.

Glass Innovation

Understanding the Properties and Structure of Organic Glass

USC's Mark Ediger explores the fundamental properties of organic glass while inventing ways to control molecule placement and slow degradation.

David Tenenbaum

June 1, 2016

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“Glass seems to work pretty well,” says glass expert Mark Ediger, gesturing at windows overlooking the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) power plant on Dayton Street. They are the only obvious bits of glass in his office, and so the discussion of 21st century glass entails repeated references toward windows that, ironically, are exactly the kind of glass that doesn’t much interest him.

Exciting Advancements for the Ceramic Industry

Regular readers of CI will know that we love to champion the advances that the industry is making in the realm of advanced ceramics and glasses.

Susan Sutton

June 1, 2016

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If you were lucky enough to attend Ceramics Expo 2016 in April, you would have seen some of the many new technologies and products that are available for today’s ceramic manufacturers and end users of ceramic components.

IP in Depth

Post-Issuance Challenges to Patent Validity

The USPTO instituted a collection of post-issuance review procedures that allow patentees and third parties to challenge the validity of patents.

Michael Gzybowski

June 1, 2016

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More than 30 years ago when I started my career as a patent examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), there was a common phrase that went something like this: “Patents are not valid until they are litigated.”