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Why are traditional ceramics often called silicate ceramics?

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traditional ceramics Stages in the slip casting of a thin-walled whiteware container. Clay powder is mixed in water together with a dispersing agent, which keeps the clay particles suspended evenly throughout the clay-water slurry, or slip. The slip is poured into a plaster mold, where water is drawn out by capillary action and a cast is formed by the deposition of clay particles on the inner surfaces of the mold. The remaining slip is drained, and the cast is allowed to dry partially before the drain hole is plugged and the mold separated. The unfinished ware is given a final drying in an oven before it is fired into a finished product.

Traditional ceramics are frequently called silicate ceramics because they are primarily manufactured from naturally occurring silicate minerals. These materials are compounds based on silica ( $S i O_{2}$ ), an oxide form of the element silicon.1

The prevalence of these minerals is so significant in the production of traditional ceramics—which typically utilize clay, silica, and feldspar—that the manufacturing process itself is often referred to as the silicate industry. Many of the raw materials employed are aluminosilicates, which combine alumina ( $A l_{2} O_{3}$ ) and silica, though pure silica is also commonly used to provide structural strength and improve final properties.12