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IMERYS – Sustainable Minerals for Investment Casting and the Refractory Industry

Meet us at Ankiros 2022

Pressemitteilung | Reading time: min

Imerys is a world leader in mineral-based specialties and offers high value-added, functional solutions to diversified sets of industrial sectors, from processing industries to consumer goods. The Group draws on its knowledge of applications, technological expertise and its material science know-how to deliver solutions based on beneficiation of its mineral resources, synthetic minerals and formulations.

The markets and customers as innovation driving forces lead to highly differentiated value propositions by combining Imerys’ in depth application knowledge with strong processing and formulation capabilities and unique access to resources.

These contribute essential properties to customers’ products and performance.

Imerys is determined to develop responsibly, in particular by fostering the emergence of sustainable and environmentally-friendly products and processes.

The Refractory, Abrasives & Construction Business Area“ is serving different industries and markets such as Refractory Producers (Shaped Refractories, Monoclinic Refractories, Kiln furniture, Advanced Ceramics), Abrasives (Bonded Abrasives, Coated Abrasives, Laminates & Coatings, Blasting Media, Friction) and Building & Infrastructure (Dry-mix-Mortar industry with self leveling floors and quick floor drying, fire-protection systems, waste water networks protection, mixing and tunneling concrete).

One important part of the Advanced Ceramics market offering is Investment Casting.

Assured performance through process stability & consistency

When it comes to producing high value, high precision and high-performance casting parts, investment casting provides dimensional accuracy, surface smoothness, shape details and a reduced need for post-casting processing.

For many years IMERYS has been a reliable supplier and partner for minerals and ceramics used in the investment casting industry.

Imerys is the recognized leader in quality for many leading automotive, aerospace, industrial gas turbine, medical and many other industrial manufacturing sectors.

Thanks to the consistently high quality of the products, IMERYS ensures that the manufacturing processes for ceramic shells in the investment casting foundry can be reproduced and thus contributes that the casting parts can always be produced in a consistently high quality.

Imerys well-established range of brands and specific product grades meet virtually all requirements of the investment casting process. They are able to cope with the pouring temperatures of the applications without failing or causing surface defects within the final casting. The reputable chemical and physical consistency, very low dust levels, usage performance characteristics and wide material variety of our products ensure a consistency that can be relied on over and over again. The ceramic nature of the mold in investment casting is crucial to the process and lends itself to a variety of casting applications and an even wider selection of alloys.


In 15 production sites around the world IMERYS manufactures and supplies a wide range of minerals for the investment casting process:

  • TECO-SIL® - Electrically fused high purity silica produced in the USA
  • MOLOCHITE® - Highly amorphous aluminosilicate produced in Cornwall
  • CLAYRAC, CHK - crystalline aluminosilicate materials produced in France and Ukraine
  • MULGRAIN® - high mullite content aluminosilicates materials produced in the USA
  • ALODUR® - Fused Aluminum Oxides produced in Germany and Austria
  • ZIONIC - Fused Zirconia materials produced in the USA and China

Dedicated and locally based sales and technical support teams guarantee service and support to the investment casting foundries. The global networking and coordination of these teams within the IMERYS investment casting business area ensures that the local staff can fall back on our global experience and knowledge, combining the local presence with the global strengths.

IMERYS – Research and development to create innovative solutions

One key element of the IMERYS service to the investment casting foundries beside the high and consistent quality of the products is the IMERYS Technology Center Austria (ITC).

It is one of the seven main research centers within the global IMERYS organization, and is specialized in development of products and processes for abrasives, advanced ceramics and investment casting.

The network of IMERYS Technology centers focus on the applicative science’ for each of our markets where we aim to understand the impact from raw material characteristics through to final end use applications. In particular, ITC Austria has expert knowledge in raw materials, both synthetic and natural, destined for applications in casting slurries and shells for investment casting. Furthermore, in joint projects with Investment Casting foundries, shells can be developed that are tailored to the individual, individual casting process. In this way, even the highest demands and requirements on the geometries and properties of the casting parts can be met.

Supported by modern and state of the art equipment and testing facilities, the center can carry out a series of tests on the ceramic materials used throughout the investment casting process. These range from the determination of the basic chemical and physical properties through to the high temperature performance as well as the detailed ceramic shell composition.

This forms the basis of ongoing research, and application development for investment casting shells.

Imerys Refractory Producers

As the world’s leading producer of specialty binders, andalusite, calcined Aluminosilicate and our range of fused products including fused alumina, tabular alumina and fused zirconia, our brands have been a mainstay of the refractory industry, supporting global development.

IMERYS is proud to offer the widest portfolio of products with their facilities, often the pioneers in developing new processes that we now consider a global norm for materials. From the first production of SECAR® calcium aluminate specialty binders and the first production of ALODUR® electrofused alumina products, both over 100 years ago, to the first developers of the DAMREC Andalusite minerals and MULCOA® calcined Mullite that have gone on to form the backbone of the modernisation of the North American and European refractory industries. The consistency and quality of these products have enabled the development of high performance monolithic and state-of-the-art shaped product technologies that have driven safety and performance across the iron & steel, aluminum, glass, cement & power industries.

With many industries such as steel, cement and automotive all firmly announcing zero carbon goals, it is up to us to ensure that we, as their go-to raw material supplier, align with these goals, whether it be our innovations, internal processes, sites or operations. This includes further incorporating best practices such as using waste sources of virgin raw materials, improving recovery rates and improving energy efficiency and sources for our processes — ensuring these are part and parcel of the day to day operations.

 

Meet us at ANKIROS 2022

IMERYS will be present at this year's edition of the ANKIROS in Istanbul from 06. to 08.October.2022 to show the IMERYS range of products of ceramic raw materials used in investment casting and refractory applications. Meet IMERYS experts in Hall H6 at booth D115 to discuss current developments and topics.

Get in touch to talk about the correct ceramic material and sustainable solutions for your needs.

Company Info

Imerys Metalcasting Germany GmbH

Schmielenfeldstraße 78
45772 Marl
Germany

Telephone: +49 (0) 23 65 8040

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