What is nano treatment on tiles?

Porcelain tiles with a nano treatment are more dirt and stain resistant, glossier and have more intense colour. Nano treatment is more complex than you might have thought. It consists of applying two different compounds up to ten layers deep to the surface of the tile, polishing between each application and then firing at 1250ºC.

A non-hazardous water soluble nano polymer compound is pressed into the micro porosities of the polished porcelain tile surface. This consists of very light and hard organic nano particles ranging in size from 5nm to1µm. The surface is then polished and a second layer is applied, polished again and a third layer applied. The particles are smaller than the tiny pinholes and cracks in the tiles so they fill these gaps and these pores become permanently sealed.



The second compound applied is a solvent flourine polymer then the tile is polished again. Flouropolymers are characterized by a high resistance to solvents, acids, and bases. With repetitive plating, applied through high pressure sanding and polishing, the nano particles combine with the tile substance to form an organic nano film with a high density and stability, which achieves the distinguishing characteristics of nano treated tiles. Generally at least six layers of polymer application and polishing cycles are completed then a final water wash before high temperature firing.



The technique of application, polishing and firing ensures that the nano particles polymerise evenly on the surface of the tiles. The high surface sheen of nano tiles creates a protective layer so dirt cannot penetrate the tiles and they are easier to keep clean. The granular material of the protective layer enhances the tiles’ durability and slip resistance making them suitable for both domestic and commercial applications and, fired at 1250ºC, nano treated tiles have a hardness equivalent to that of granite.

But it’s not just a long process, it’s tricky too. The specially designed polishing heads must operate at an ideal temperature of between 35ºC and 70ºC, they must also be carefully aligned to move consistently over the surface of the tile polishing each part with the same even pressure. The amount of compound applied to the tile must also be very finely controlled to 35-50ml/m² to ensure even distribution of the particles.

Nano treated tiles are harder, glossier and more resistant to staining and wearing. See the technical details in the sidebar.

Our Classic Super White, Ivory and Monza tiles are all rectified, nano treated polished porcelain. Enquiries here.

What flooring is the most cost-effective?

When buying flooring most people, even professionals in the building industry would consider three main factors; style, suitability and cost.

Style would include the texture, appearance and in general whether the product will fit in with the interior (or exterior) design.

Suitability is a more complex issue and professional advice is necessary. For example outdoor tiles in a cold climate need to be specified as frost resistant, flooring used in commercial spaces needs to be suitably wear resistant AC4 for laminated flooring, porcelains for tiles and so forth.

Cost may seem a simple issue but it gets complicated. The cost of a flooring system per square meter (or square foot) is just the first factor to consider. What about installation costs? What about the cost and effort of cleaning materials for the floor every year. And how long is this floor going to last until it needs replacement? Taking all these factors and more into consideration the Tile Council of North America commissioned Scharf-Godfrey to undertake what is called a  Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) for 17 different floor coverings. LCCA is defined as an economic method of project evaluation in which all costs arising from owning, operating, maintaining and disposing of a project are considered important to the decision.

Costs were amortized over the 40 year average lifetime of a building. The ratings in the table below take into account a multitude of factors and reduce them to a cost per area per year.

What you may find surprising is that ceramic and porcelain tiles are the most cost effective of all. This is not to say other flooring doesn’t have a place, just that for most applications ceramic tiles give the most bang for the buck! You may want to point this out to the next customer you serve.

More next time!

P.S. By the way VCT at the bottom of the table stands for Vinyl Composition Tile. It is a finished flooring material used primarily in commercial and institutional applications. VCT is composed of colored vinyl chips formed into solid sheets of varying thicknesses (4mm is common) by heat and pressure and cut into 30cm squares. Tiles are applied to a smooth, leveled sub-floor using a specially formulated vinyl adhesive that remains tacky but does not completely dry. Tiles are typically waxed and buffed using special materials and equipment.
VCT tiles have high resilience to abrasion and impact damage and can be repeatedly refinished with chemical strippers and mechanical buffing equipment. If properly installed, tiles can be easily removed and replaced when damaged. Tiles are available in a variety of colors from several major flooring manufacturers. Some manufacturers have created vinyl tiles that very closely resemble wood, stone terrazzo and concrete. Tiles can easily be cut and assembled into colorful and decorative patterns.
Vinyl composition tiles took the place of asbestos tiles, which were widely used in schools, hospitals, offices, and public buildings up until the 1980s. Use of tiles and adhesives containing asbestos were discontinued when asbestos materials were determined to be hazardous. 

Water Absorption 101

Water absorption rates are the most important measurement of a tile. Water absorption measures how much moisture a specific type of tile is likely to absorb on an ongoing basis. Some types of tile may crack if the moisture penetration is too high. In general if the tile has a low water absorption, the durability and strength are increased. Low water absorption restricts the amount of water that may cause failure by cyclic salt attack and freeze thaw. The water absorption percentage reflects the density of the tile body. Water absorption is also directly related to the suitability for interior or exterior applications. For exterior applications, the selected tiles should have a low water absorption rate, especially in climates subjected to heavy rainfall and freezing and thawing cycles. A low water absorption rate also enables a tile to resist food or beverage stains.

Testing for water absorption determines the apparent porosity and relative density as a means to classify ceramic tiles according to the international standard ISO13006-10545/98. There are four categories:

• B2b. Non-vitreous - Low density, High water absorption of more than 6.0% (Ceramic)
• B2a. Semi-vitreous - Medium density, Medium water absorption of more than 3.0%, but less than 6.0% (Ceramic)
• B1b. Fully Vitrified - High density, Low water absorption of more than 0.5%, but less than 3.0% (Ceramic)
• B1a. Impervious - Extremely high density, Very low water absorption of less than 0.5% (Porcelain)

One thing to remember is that while porcelain is often viewed by the consumer as a superior product this does not guarantee that the material is fit for purpose, or put another way, it is unnecessary to use porcelain in an interior space with low traffic that is not exposed to extreme temperatures or water.

There are 3 methods to determine the water absorption of tiles:
Boiling method
Vacuum method
Electrical method

The boiling method is used to classify the ceramic tiles and involves drying the tiles out and then boiling them in water for 2 hours followed by cooling to room temperature over a four hour period. The mass of the tiles are weighed both before and after the water immersion to determine the percentage of water absorption.

The vacuum method evacuates the air from a chamber with the tiles inside and then immerses the tiles in water. Once again the tiles are weighed before and after water immersion to determine the apparent porosity, apparent relative density and bulk density.

The electrical method requires that the tiles be immersed in water for two hours then a high voltage electric current is passed through the tiles. The measured conductivity of the tile determines the percentage of water absorbed.

OK, those are the basics, take a look at our catalogues, select a few tiles and determine a suitable application. Ask your experienced staff to check or email us and we'll answer you.

10 Top Technology Tiles

Today I'd like to give you the heads up on some truly cutting edge technology in tiles. Humans have been producing ceramics for over ten thousand years, it is one of our most ancient industries, yet today the ceramic tile industry is experiencing a remarkable renaissance by integrating several cutting edge, hi tech innovations. In this post I will review ten extraordinary technologies that are transforming tiles.

These are all real technologies that are available in the market now. While many are hardly standard stock items you will easily imagine their application to specific architectural projects. Of course as the technologies become established prices will drop and these innovations will become more ubiquitous.

Above: LED glow tiles
These tiles are just amazing and I can certainly imagine them installed in a nightclub. The tiles are independently  pressure sensitive and can be programmed to display animated graphics on walls and floors. Available in a special dance floor format they are equipped with various gaming features as well!


Anti-pollutant & antibacterial air-cleaning tiles
In April I wrote about some tiles installed as cladding on a building in Mexico City that actually clean pollutants out of the air. How do they work? Titanium dioxide is fixed at a high temperature into microscopic particles in the glaze. When the tiles are exposed to sunlight or artificial light, the particles act as catalysts, which carry out an anti-polluting, antibacterial action most importantly extracting toxic Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) from the air. In practice, it is as if the floor or wall covering turns into a tree, breaking down polluting agents and bacteria, thanks to the mechanism that works just like chlorophyl photosynthesis. It has been demonstrated that 1000m2 tiles carry out the same function as 20 mature trees, in terms of reduction of NOx, so 50m2 = one mature tree and 25m2 = one medium-sized tree!

Thermally sensitive colour changing tiles
These have been around for a while. Hot water causes the thermally sensitive dye under the glaze to change colour. The base color of the tile can match almost any color, and the temperature change point can be set to the user’s environment and requirements. The dynamic color change begins at the selected activation temperature and shimmers through three phases, one with each 6–10° rise in temperature.


Personalised print-on-demand inkjet tiles
I wrote about inkjet technology in the last couple of weeks so I won't go into detail except to say that the technology means it possible to cost-effectively produce entirely unique custom designs including say the buyers own artwork. This really is the future and will become increasingly common.


Liquid tiles
The Liquifloor is a really innovative concept The tiles consists of layers of durable PVC. The top layer is transparent and below this is a coloured gel-like liquid, which deforms and flows so the design keeps changing with the change of pressure on the tiles.


LED dot tiles
These tiles are made to entertain.Kids will love them! These LED dot tiles are exceptionally beautiful and will completely light up your house even if without power. They glows in various colours when walked upon At night they can be programmed with figures and shapes One delightful feature is that they can be set to display different colours according to the weight of the person who’s walking on them!


Info display tiles
The I-Quad is an awesome concept in tiles which comes with various interactive features. The array is made of LED back lit tiles which are framed and can display date, time, weather, the latest affairs, buzzing news, e-mails, images and plenty more. The array is USB or Bluetooth enabled.


Hydrophilic self-cleaning tiles
The diagram is pretty self explanatory. These work with a combination of the Titanium dioxide anti-pollutant technology plus a nanotech surface texture that reduces water tension allowing rain to wash the down to a submicroscopic level.Self cleaning tiles will be a major boon for bathrooms, commercial catering spaces, other hygiene sensitive industries as well as building exteriors.

Photoluminescence & touch switches
Other glaze technologies include photoluminescence for energy-free safety or informational lighting systems without electricity, and glazes that act as touchscreens for unobtrusive electrical systems like lighting or alarms with no need for switches. The bath pictured here is tiled with 1,7cm mosaic tiles that absorb energy during the day and glow at night.

More next time!

"The glaze has failed." What do you say to your customer?

The customer complaint:

Being a natural product that is fired in a kiln, there will always be some tiles in each batch that show some imperfections. Before packaging, tiles are graded and any with visible imperfections are removed and sold as seconds. Nonetheless a few will always slip through the system. In some remarkable instances the glaze may have been improperly fired to the body of the tile but this is extremely rare in modern tiles. The photo above shows massive glaze failure on tiles from the exterior of a 90 year old building. This hardly ever happens today and I think we can all agree that the guarantee, if any, has long since expired. The cause in this case was massive moisture absorption from rain seeping into the substrate which after decades eventually caused the glaze to start popping off.

Much mor common are tiles with tiny strips of missing glaze on the edges. These tiles are perfectly sound, but all the same are imperfect. International standards allow 5% of any first grade consignment to have some visual imperfections, this means that 5 tiles in each group of 100 tiles may have some imperfections. The tiler should always put these tiles aside and use them when a cut tile is needed.

If a customer complains of a tiling project that has obvious imperfect tiles installed, like glaze missing on the edges, then it is simply because the tiler has not checked the tiles as he laid them. Defect tiles can slip through the factory. Faults like missing glaze on the edge of a tile, firing cracks, craters, bubbles, pinholes or smudged patterns. are all visible things and the installer should put these tiles aside and not use them.

So what do you do?

If the tiles have not been installed they should be returned and you should exchange them matching shades for the customer. The tiler should then install the new ones. Remember that no claims can be made once tiles have been laid.

www.linkinternationalkl.com

Tile Inkjet Printing
How it works
Part 2 of 2

Technology specifics
In digital printing there is no contact with the tile surface. The most popular technology adopted by most producers of machines is called Drop-On-Demand (DOD). It is based on a piezoelectric device that deforms under voltage enabling droplet expulsion. The most popular color system is the CMYK standard. This is an acronym for the colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (for black K is used instead of B to avoid confusion with Blue). In the CMYK system the black separation or Key Plate contains the fine details. Cyan, magenta and yellow overlap in different percentages to produce the colors in the circles below. All three overlap in the middle to produce a very dark brown, for this reason the additional black ink is used.

The image is electronically separated in a graphics program like Photoshop and a set of signals is sent to each of the different colour print heads, usually the CMYK four but on some machines six or more. The final image is reproduced by overlaying these ink colours.
Drop on Demand
The ink is made from a suspension of very fine pigment particles, at a specific temperature and viscosity. It is held in a main reservoir and fed under pressure to the print reservoir which has a tiny 0,04mm nozzle. The ink is shot from a distance of a few millimeters to the tile. Piezoelectric crystals change shape when an electric current is passed through them so a computer can minutely control the size, speed and frequency of the drops.

Variable Drop Size
A further variation on this is a technology that produces drops of different sizes from the same nozzle. This produces different colour intensities depending on the size of the drops. Larger drops will literally make bigger heavier ‘puddles’ of colour on the tile and cover better whereas a finer spray of smaller drops will give a lighter cover. Changes in drop size can be made by changing the frequency and length of pulses in the piezoelectric element. So a standard nozzle could fire one big drop or fire a burst of 6 drops in the same time but producing two very different effects. Overlapping different sized drops with different colors can create an wider range of tones and colors.

Spray on Demand
This technology uses a spray instead of drops. The ink reservoir is connected to a thin vibrating tube that shoots the spray of ink. By controlling the frequency of the vibrations the nozzle tube describes a cone so the intensity of the color can be controlled. The drops are dispersed at around 1000Hz. The spray tubes are around 10 times the diameter of DoD sytems so they use more ink but the advantage is that pigments are more stable when fired precisely because they are bigger and rougher.


Masters and variations
In ink jet printing a large Master design of the tile pattern is produced. Like this marble-look tile below. Since this is a digital file on a computer it is easy to select different parts of the master to print onto individual tiles.

Inks solvents & glazes
The slightest change in any parameter can affect color, intensity and definition of the deposited ink. If the density, viscosity or surface tension of the ink changes, the quality will change. Thus it is critical to keep both the inks and solvents used at a constant temperature. Inks are constantly stirred and recycled and the tubes and nozzles are cleaned as part of the printing process without any pause in production because solvents are essential to drop formation. The first inks used for inkjet printing on tiles were organometallic which offered low viscosity, moderate surface tension and high coverage using non-toxic solvents.
Inkjet printers use a very limited number of colours in careful combinations to produce all other colours but there are limits. Because tiles are fired in a kiln between 900-1200°C, chemical and solid state reactions occur between the body, the ink, the solvent and the glaze that cannot easily be predicted but the industry continues experimenting and advances are made all the time. For example true magenta and true black are very difficult to produce so conventional tile printing processes are used for tiles requiring these colours. Nonetheless the versatility of ink jet printing and being able to create multiple variations of tile designs means that ink jet tiles will soon be an intrinsic component of tile production lines everywhere.

We are presently in China assessing and appointing factories for our seven new ranges of ink jet tiles. Watch this blog for our new ink-jet gres porcelain catalogues coming soon soon.

Tile Inkjet Printing - How it works.

Part 1 of 2

History

Amazingly the concept of inkjet printing has actually been around two hundred years but the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. By the late 1970s inkjet printers that could reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed.

Using the technology to print onto tiles began in 2000 where it was showcased at that year’s Cevisama exhibition in Spain. Since then there has been a steady evolution of mechanical, electronic, ink, pigment and chemical technology in a highly competitive market. Today there are a wide variety of machines being made and used across the world.

Technology

Typically print heads use piezoelectric crystals to control ink-flow out of microscopic nozzles directly onto the tile body. The technology is essentially the same as your desktop inkjet printer at home however there are significant differences in scale, resolution and speed of operation.

Instead of using four heads which scan across the page tile inkjet printers use four or more rows that span the entire width of the tiles so the inks can be laid down in succession. The array may have up to 1000 heads per row.

Inkjet printers can easily be integrated into glazing production lines and the race is now on to develop machines able to decorate tiles 24/7 at 1000 to 1500m² per hour. The problem is that there’s a trade-off between speed and resolution or coverage, just like the printer on your desk at home, photo quality takes a lot longer than a page of black text.

Some tile printers can produce very high definition images at up to 1000 dpi which is beyond the ability of the human eye to resolve. For most tiles around 200-300 dpi is adequate, roughly the resolution a colour magazine or book. However, the most important feature is the amazing versatility of inkjet printing.

Advantages

Different machines for digital inkjet printing are available with a variety of characteristics but these are the main advantages.

·         The image printed is chemically stable

·         Inkjet printing is efficient and there’s far less wastage than with contact printing systems like rollers.

·         Removing rollers from the process reduces moving parts and thus costs of installation and maintenance.

·         Excellent potential to reproduce natural stones and pictures.

·         Much faster change-over times to new colours or designs.

·         Greatly improved consistency of colour because storage and control of all printing parameters is more finely controlled and easier.

·         Because the inkjet process occurs at a distance it is possible decorate relief surfaces and up to the edges.

·         Inkjet decoration shortens the path from idea to product.

There are more advantages but we must also admit that digital printing cannot always substitute for traditional methods of printing, especially when we need higher thicknesses of paste or when we need strongly colored surface areas. Work is in progress so we can expect improvements and further cost reductions because inkjet technology is still in evolution (after overcoming initial problems). Inkjet technology is currently expanding its reach to different kinds of tile and, of course, the technology aspect itself is arousing the interest of more developers.

Part 2 next week.