• Materials for Ceramics

Petunse

Alternate Names: Porcelain stone, petuntse, lithium china stone

Notes

A low-iron, high quality material found in China. It forms the basis of a historic porcelain industry. The material has a chemistry similar to Cornwall Stone (15% Al₂O₃, 75% SiO₂), it can be mixed with kaolin to produce a fine porcelain. The percentage of Petuntse required to produce a vitreous fired product means the remaining kaolin must assume the burden to produce all the plasticity (thus bodies are very non-plastic compared to western tastes). A Chinese supplier, Amanda International describes it this way (edited to English and to remove redundancy):

"Lithium porcelain stone is pure in quality, with good whiteness, high content of alkali metal oxides Li₂O, K₂O and Na₂O. Widely used in tableware, building porcelain, sanitaryware, high white porcelain brick, ceramic glaze and frit (even in cosmetics). Lithium porcelain stone has very low content of iron and titanium. The contents of Li₂O, K₂O and Na₂O in the composition are relatively high, which makes it have a strong melting ability. The sericite mineral content also is said to impart good plasticity (we. The material is thought to be unique to China."

The chemistry from another supplier was 68% SiO₂, 18% Al₂O₃, 1.0% Li₂O, 2.8% K₂O, 3.2% Na₂O, 1.4% CaO, 4% LOI.

Haicheng Bright Future Mineral (Amanda International Private Ltd) claims their material contains lithium also, imparting "strong melting ability", and that it also has good plasticity because of "large amount of sericite mineral content". They also say: "Lithium porcelain stone is widely used in daily porcelain, building porcelain, sanitary porcelain, high white porcelain brick, especially ceramic glaze and frit".

Related Information

Lithium China Stone analysis

Sample from a testing lab.

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