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Materials for Ceramics

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Mineral Colloid BP

Notes

No longer available as of 2022. Bentolite being recommended as a substitute.

Targeted at waterbased paints and coatings, Mineral Colloid® BP is useful in ceramics (e.g. as a plasticizer in porcelains, gelling agent in glazes). It is a high purity white montmorillonite refined from carefully selected natural bentonite. It exhibits excellent thixotropic properties, enhancing suspension, stability and viscosity control.

Because Mineral Colloid BP is totally inorganic, it is not susceptible to enzyme attack or high temperatures during manufacturing. Mineral Colloid can be sheared repeatedly, has high gel strength and its rheology lends itself to excellent spray atomization.

Mineral Colloid imparts more plasticity to a porcelain than Gelwhite H (another similar material from Southern Clay Products). However it does not fire quite as white.

Related Information

Mineral Colloid BP, Gelwhite H, Veegum T in plastic form

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Each has been mixed with water and all produce a jelly-like translucent sticky material that takes a very very long time to dry. They are expensive and, among other uses, act as white-burning plasticizers in fine porcelain bodies.

Veegum T , Mineral Colloid BP, Gelwhite H at cone 6

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The Veegum is dense and white, but not melting. The Mineral Colloid fires like a typical raw bentonite (dark brown, high soluble salts and beginning to melt). The Gelwhite is completely melted and foamed.

Links

Oxide	Analysis	Formula	Tolerance

Materials	Bentolite L-3
Materials	Veegum A clay of incredibly small particle size. It has the highest plasticity of any known clay and acts as a suspending and gelling agent in slurries.
Materials	Gelwhite H
Typecodes	Additives for Ceramic Bodies Materials that are added to bodies to impart physical working properties and usually burn away during firing. Binders enable bodies with very low or zero clay content to have plasticity and dry hardness, they can give powders flow properties during pressing and impart rheological properties to clay slurries. Among potters however, it is common for bodies to have zero additives.
Typecodes	Additives for Ceramic Glazes Materials that are added to glazes to impart physical working properties and usually burn away during firing. In industry all glazes, inks and engobes have additives, they are considered essential to control of cohesion, adhesion, suspension, dry hardness, surface leveling, rheology, speed-of-drying, etc. Among potters, it is common for glazes to have zero additives.
Minerals	Montmorillonite, Bentonite A clay mineral of extremely small particle size and high plasticity. Raw bentonite is generally a pa

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