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The
kaolins and ball clays produced by ECC International are blended and controlled to strict
specifications to ensure the high degree of consistency and quality necessary. However,
most ceramic producers carry out wet refining as the first stage in their body preparation
process. This expensive operation can be avoided when fully refined ready-to-use clay is
purchased from the Prepared Body Plant. Batch weighed amounts of the chosen clay are dispersed in stainless steel blungers. The resulting slurry is then passed over vibratory screens followed by electro magnets and six 9000 gauss rare earth magnets. The product is therefore more free from impurities than is generally achieved. The refined clay slurry, at the density and state of deflocculation specified by the customer, is held in stainless steel storage tanks ready for despatch. Clay delivered in this slurry form can be mixed directly with other body ingredients to produce casting slips (e.g. sanitaryware) or body slurry for filter-pressing and pugging. In either case, this very high quality material brings the extra advantages of reduced costs for storage, dispersion, screening and disposal of effluent. The Prepared Body Plant can also offer these highly refined clays in a spray dried form. The slurry is passed through two further stages of rare earth magnetic separation before spray drying and the resultant granulate gives an exciting form of high quality clay. It is extremely easy and inexpensive to convert into slurry by slow speed agitation or to blend with other body materials in an intensive mixing process. Spray dried granulate is particularly easy to handle, either in IBC’s or by conveying to silos. |