Baikowski

Baikowski® – Fine Oxides for Advanced Ceramics 
 

Baikowski® – Fine Oxides for Advanced Ceramics 

For over 115 years, Baikowski has been a leading industrial manufacturer of High Purity Alumina (HPA), Spinel, Phosphors (YAG, LuAG), and Zirconia. Baikowski’s raw materials are the keystone to the development of high-end technical ceramics and photonic crystals as well as the core component for precision polishing slurries, additives, and coatings. The company has its production and R&D units in France, United-States, and Japan. Baikowski completes its worldwide presence with offices and sales agents in Korea and China. Mathym®, newly integrated to Baikowski group, develops high-performing nano-dispersions. Baikowski’s high purity raw materials are customized for several advanced ceramic applications: 

Ceramic Matrix Composites – CMC 

Baikowski develops specialized HPA and mullite ceramic matrix aggregates for oxide-oxide CMCs. Fine oxides enhance the CMC properties including interlaminar strength, thermal shock resistance, lightweight, fracture toughness, tensile creep, electrical insulation, and chemical stability. 

These properties are strengthened by Baikowski’s tight control of particle size distribution in the delivered products (d50<0,2 μm), phase purity (100 % α-alumina), high sinterability, high solid loading content with only moderate increase in viscosity. Their particle control allows for easy processability, intimate mixing, lower sintering temperatures, and stronger mechanical properties. Their customized solutions for CMC include powders, powder suspensions, and material composition and repairable CMCs. 

Transparent ceramics 

Baikowski provides dedicated raw material such as spinel, HPA, or YAG for transparent ceramics. On the one hand, Baikowski has been optimizing its powders for optical functions in the final ceramics. Indeed, they control the purity, formulation for sintering process, and the size of particles. Thus, it ensures the best density for ceramic parts while keeping good optical properties. 

On the other, their spinel products have a constant crystallographic composition with low sulfur content and low metallic impurities. It ensures the best transparency and mechanical properties for ceramic parts. 

Those properties are strengthened by Baikowski’s control of particle size and size distribution in the delivered products. Moreover, their products adapt easily to the customer process, either traditional CIP (Cold Isostatic Pressing) and sinter, hot pressing, HIP (Hot Isostatic Pressing) or single crystal growth. 

Ultrafiltration ceramics 

Their fine oxides allow to develop hierarchical porosity in ultrafiltration ceramics. This functionality implies that the customer will use specific processes to manage such a high level of control of the porosity of the final ceramic membrane. They adapt the product according to the process of each customer to tune macro-, meso-, and microporosity. For example, they design HPA for mesoporous membranes such as plate and frame ceramic membranes. Furthermore, nanoparticles with controlled morphology and surface activity can be used to tune the microstructure of ceramics and composites, obtaining smaller grain sizes at lower sintering temperatures, and allowing the design of novel microstructures in nanoporous materials. Main applications include nanoporous layers in ultrafiltration/ nanofiltration ceramic membranes for gas separation, water decontamination, food processing, chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing. 

Ceramic cutting tools 

Ceramic cutting tools are requiring strong wear resistance. Only high-density pieces with great intrinsic hardness and no porosity can provide a very good resistance to wear. Baikowski provides HPA and zirconia with controlled agglomerates (which tend to zero for no porosity) and controlled particle size distribution. 

Furthermore, the finer the microstructure, the tougher the cutting tool. Baikowski provides fine oxides guaranteeing controlled size of the final ceramic grains and hardness due to the finest microstructure. The ceramic obtained by sintering their powders is highly dense at a low temperature. They also develop ready-to-press powders dedicated to injection moulding. They add various dopants upon request, to foster the densification of the ceramic. Some additives like zirconia can also reinforce the mechanical properties. 

Medical ceramics 

Medical ceramics (or bioceramics) shall be long-lasting, as implants in the body must last longer than a human life. Baikowski provides zirconia-based material, like BSZ (Baikowski’s Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia) and ATZ (Alumina-Toughened Zirconia) as well as alumina-based material like ZTA (Zirconia-Toughened Alumina) to create durable ceramic parts. BSZ8Y particularly fits dental implant application, insofar as it is combining 8 % of yttria (bringing the transparency) with the mechanical properties of zirconia. 

Moreover, a colored dopant can add the final touch to the appearance of the ceramic, while a 3rd phase dopant for ATZ or ZTA will improve its mechanical properties. Mathym also developed zirconia nanoparticles in suspension, allowing to combine radiopacity and enhanced mechanical properties of the dental composite. 

Thermal management ceramics 

Baikowski provides HPA enabling to control the final porosity of the ceramic. Indeed, they control the particle size, particle size distribution and agglomerates of HPA. It participates in the efficiency of the heat dissipation or insulation. With a HPA-based paste, the customer obtains a controlled viscosity thanks to the control of the physical parameters of the product. The CMA (Controlled Morphology Alumina) was particularly designed for thermal management purpose. 

Specialty coatings 

The thickness of the coating layer is optimized by controlling the particle size of fine oxide powders. In addition, Baikowski controls the surface chemistry of the particles to enhance chemical resistance. The sintering temperature must be below the coated material’s operating capabilities. That’s why they produce highly reactive particles, by controlling the chemical purity. Moreover, the control of the shrinkage of the material maximizes the compatibility of the coating slurry and the coated material. 

Want to know more? Visit the website www.baikowski.com