Ceramic Industry articles from December 2008

Ceramic Industry archives from December 2008

Hitting the jackpot.(INSIDE CI)
December 1, 2008... I was lucky enough to get a new computer a few days ago, and I think the exhilaration and relief I feel must be akin to a lottery winner's. I know the computer won't solve all of my problems, but it sure will make them much easier to deal with....

International calendar.(Calendar)
December 1, 2008... Dec 8-10 NGMD 08: Next Generation Materials for Defense ** Arlington, Va., www.idga.org/us/ngmd Dec 8-12 Thermographic Applications Level 1 ** Montpelier, Vt., www.snellinfrared.com Dec 11-12 Fuel Cells Durability & Performance...

H.C. Starck announces new brand name.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... H.C. Starck recently announced that the BAYMETEC[R] range of ultra-pure products for the semiconductor and lighting industries is now being marketed under the name AMPERTEC[TM]. The name change is necessary because, though all patent rights for...

C5 Medical Werks launches CIM capabilities .(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... C5 Medical Werks recently announced its ability to produce ceramic injection molded (CIM) components. The company's increased capacity meets the demand driven by medical device companies needing to source high-volume, tight-tolerance and...

Ceradyne receives $2,37 billion body armor.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... Ceradyne, Inc. has received an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract for both its XSAPI and ESAPI personal ceramic armor plates from the U.S. Army RDECOM, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md. The total amount of the contract is...

Air products to supply bulk gases to SCHOTT Solar.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... Air Products recently announced an agreement to supply SCHOTT Solar's new production facility in Albuquerque, N.M., with liquid nitrogen, oxygen, argon and hydrogen. The new plant, which will manufacture photovoltaic modules and receivers for...

Cookson to sell hi-tech ceramic filters business to Sud-Chemie.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... Cookson Group plc has entered into a conditional agreement to sell its Hi-Tech Ceramics fleers business to Sud-Chemie AG. The Hi-Tech business had revenue of approximately 5 million [pounds sterling] (about $9 million) and trading profit of...

FLABEG to build new solar mirror facility near Pittsburgh .(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... FLABEG plans to establish U.S. production capacity for high-precision parabolic mirrors that are used to help generate electricity at large-scale solar power plants. The new 209,000-square-foot manufacturing facility will be built in the...

CeramTec signs strategic contract.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... CeramTec North America Corp. (CTNA) recently announced the signing of a strategic contract with a U.S.-based company to supply key technical ceramics for manufacturing petrochemical derivatives. The multi-million-dollar manufacturing agreement...

KEMET certified to aerospace quality standard.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... KEMET Corp. recently announced that its tantalum and ceramics manufacturing operations have been awarded certificates of registration to the Aerospace Quality Standard AS9100. Registration is rapidly becoming a prerequisite for aerospace...

Yingli Green Energy signs long-term polysilicon agreement with Wacker.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Limited has entered into a new long-term polysilicon supply agreement with Wacker Chemie AG. Under this agreement, Wacker Chemie will supply Yingli Green Energy with polysilicon from 2010 through the end of 2017....

CPS awarded agreement with Army Research Lab.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... CPS Technologies Corp. recently announced that it has been awarded a cooperative agreement from the Army Research Laboratory to further develop manufacturing technologies to produce large modules of hybrid metal matrix composite armor. Visit...

ORNL wins $8.5 million in funding for Nanomanufacturing.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)(Oak Ridge National Laboratory)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Eight Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) nanomanufacturing technologies have won $8.4 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Industrial Technologies Program. The awards, which will bring $6.8 million to the lab and $1.6...

EPA and NSF establish nanotechnology centers.(Advanced Ceramics News Briefs)
December 1, 2008... To ensure that nanotechnology is developed in a responsible manner, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded $38 million to establish two Centers for the Environmental Implications of...

Ferro sells Fine Chemicals business to Novolyte.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... Ferro Corp. recently announced that it has sold its Fine Chemicals business to Novolyte Technologies LP, an affiliate of Arsenal Capital Management LP, for $66 million in cash. "This sale is consistent with our vision of focusing Ferro's...

Ingredient Masters expands international reach.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... Ingredient Masters has appointed MIL Industries, LTD, Chennai, India, as its exclusive representative for India. It is expected that the alliance will substantially increase Ingredient Masters' sales, service and development capabilities to...

Thermal Technology expands facility.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... Thermal Technology LLC recently expanded its refractory metal hot zone fabrication capabilities by adding almost 4000 square feet of production space and increasing manpower at its facility in Santa Rosa, Calif. The company produces...

Detroit Process Machinery launched.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... Machinery buyer and reseller Tom Suhy recently announced that he has launched Detroit Process Machinery, Inc., a new company that aims to provide the worldwide ceramic, refractory, powdered metal, carbide, ferrite, carbon, and powder industries...

RHI doubles production capacity at plant in India.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... In order to meet the increasing demand for high-grade refractory solutions worldwide, RHI has opened a second production line in Venkatapuram, India, doubling capacity to approximately 50,000 annual metric tons. In December 2006, the RHI Clasil...

Harrop is exclusive North American licensee for MAT Kilns.(IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... Harrop Industries, Inc. has obtained an exclusive North American license from Ceralink, Inc. to market and build industrial kilns and furnaces using microwave assist technology (MAT[TM]). In conjunction with Ceralink in 2007, Harrop designed...

Subhash Singhal.(PEOPLE IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Subhash Singhal, Ph.D., a Battelle fellow and director of Fuel Cells at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), recently received the 2008 Grove Medal for sustained...

Saint-Gobain's North American.(PEOPLE IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... James Thompson has been named senior vice president of Human Resources for Saint-Gobain's North American businesses. He succeeds Dennis Baker, who is retiring from the company. Thomson joined Saint-Gobain in 1997 as engineering manager for the...

Almatis.(PEOPLE IN THE NEWS)
December 1, 2008... The Almatis supervisory board has appointed Helmut Eschwey as its new non-executive chairman. Eschwey brings professional and corporate governance experience that augments the supervisory board's capability in monitoring and advising the...

CeramTec North America.(PEOPLE IN THE NEWS)(appointment of Mark Duchnak)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Mark Duchnak recently joined CeramTec North America as national sales manager. Before joining CeramTec, Duchnak worked for seven years with Morgan Advanced Ceramics, Inc. as a sales and business development manager. In addition, Eddie Lu has...

Avoid F.O.B. confusion.(FREIGHT FOCUS)(free on board)
December 1, 2008... The meaning of the term F.O.B. is perhaps the most misunderstood of all freight verbiage. F.O.B. stands for Free On Board, and it indicates the price for goods, including delivery at the seller's expense, to a specified point. In the purchasing...

From butterfly wings to solar cells: researchers are using the conformal evaporated film by rotation technique to capture microscopic biological surfaces in a thin coating of glass.(GLASS innovations)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Someday, your car might have the metallic finish of an insect or the deep black of a butterfly's wing, and the reflectors might be patterned on the nanostructure of a fly's eyes, according to Penn State researchers...

Nanoscale snapshot: a dynamic transmission electron microscope provides a snapshot of the transformation of nanoscale structures.(TECHNOLOGY innovations)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have achieved a milestone in materials science and electron microscopy by taking a high-resolution snapshot of the transformation...

Cut the noise: micro-honeycomb materials are enabling a new physics of sound reduction.(CERAMIC innovations)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Noise from commercial and military jet aircraft causes environmental problems for communities near airports, obliging airplanes to follow often complex noise abatement procedures on takeoff and landing. It can also...

Harnessing the sun: solar energy has long been the most widely supported alternative energy source, theoretically because it offers the greatest potential and has an extremely low level of C[O.sub.2] emissions.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] According to recent statistics from the U.S. government, global energy consumption will increase by close to 40% by 2030 to nearly 700 quadrillion BTUs from its present level of 500 quadrillion BTUs. On average, the...

Flexible sputter solutions: application-specific setup and process tuning are key elements in enabling manufacturers to produce unique products.
December 1, 2008... The main applications for large area glass coatings (LAGCs) can be found in the architectural, automotive, display and photovoltaics (PV) industries. In all of these application fields, there is a strong evolution toward customization....

Thinking outside the box.(BUSINESS BRIEFS)
December 1, 2008... In my years as a ceramic engineer and general manager of a small refractory company, I watched many of my competitors fall into bankruptcy and disappear from the American manufacturing landscape. The list is long, and the impact on their...

Subcontracting 101: subcontracting in the ceramic tile industry is very challenging but can be rewarding--for both manufacturer and subcontractor--if handled properly.(special section: business guide)
December 1, 2008... Subcontracting is becoming a major player in the ceramic tile industry. Many manufacturers are choosing to concentrate on their core activities while outsourcing others. This business practice was first used by the car industry and has spread...

Recruitment fundamentals: a multi-layered, robust recruiting process must be rooted in proactive vs. reactive recruiting.(special section: business guide)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "All aboard!" Don't you just wish that hiring new employees was that easy? Unfortunately, it's such a challenge today that in a recent national survey, over 30% of CEOs said that up to half of their employees are a...

IP protection of ceramic creations: intellectual property protection helps prevent competitors from using your developments and/or product designs.(special section: business guide)
December 1, 2008... Intellectual property can be broadly defined as the bundle of rights one may obtain for the result of intellectual or creative activity. The advantage of intellectual property (IP) protection is that it may prevent competitors from using your...

Multiple-stack furnace: multi-stack furnaces are appropriate for processing advanced and electronic ceramic components, or nanomaterials, where higher-volume production with the accuracy of laboratory-scale processing is desired.(PRODUCT PROFILE)
December 1, 2008... Multiple-stack bottom loading furnaces reportedly represent a large technical development for firing processes up to 1700[degrees]C (3100[degrees]F) for modestly large furnace load volumes. The furnaces enable users to heat-process larger...

Services directory address index.(Directory)
December 1, 2008... A-TEN-C, INC. 226 Grant Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15209 (412) 821-5566 Fax: (412) 821-5577 atencinci@verizon.net www.ceramicrecycling.com Gary Fink, Mktg. Recycles ceramics, refractories, and abrasives. Also processes...

2008-2009 Services directory.(Table)
December 1, 2008... 2008-2009 SERVICES DIRECTORY 2008-2009 Attorneys Batching SERVICES DIRECTORY and and Legal Forming...

Digital microscopy.(WHAT'S NEW)
December 1, 2008... LECO Corp. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This company has partnered with HIROX to provide a new line of micro scope solutions for North American laboratories. HIROX digital zoom microscope systems reportedly offer the highest magnification...

Solar inks.(WHAT'S NEW)
December 1, 2008... Five Star Technologies The ElectroSperse[TM] S-series of solar inks is available for use in crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells. The S-500 series of silver-based conductive inks allows solar cell makers to lay out front side grid lines...

Powder pipette.(WHAT'S NEW)
December 1, 2008... Zinsser [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The new DryPette[R] Varix is a fast, lightweight, hand-held powder pipette that reproducibly, accurately and efficiently dispenses solids and difficult powders (statically charged materials and other...