No doubt, natural materials are already good because they are natural. Take the same marble - it is beautiful, it lasts a long time and does not require significant efforts for its care. But there is a material that, not being natural, is in no way inferior to the best natural samples. This is porcelain stoneware, and unlike natural stone, it has a variety of textures. Modern technologies allow you to get almost any surface. There is porcelain stoneware that looks like a stone, looks like a tree or imitates the structure of any other material.
Currently, surface finishing with it has become very popular, sometimes replacing some familiar materials. Facade cladding, primarily of large commercial and commercial buildings, is usually made of porcelain stoneware. And in interior decoration, it is used more and more widely, especially where high resistance to mechanical stress, strength and wear resistance are required. Floor cladding when stone look porcelain stoneware is used, especially in commercial and public areasareas where there is a large flow of people is the most common occurrence.
What is the reason for such popularity of porcelain stoneware? in its properties. Suffice it to mention that it is inherent:
- zero water absorption;
- high wear resistance and mechanical strength;
- chemical inertness;
- practical, almost maintenance-free, durable.
Such opportunities are a consequence of its manufacturing technology. The initial components (quartz sand, white clay, metal oxides as dyes and feldspar) are crushed, mixed, pressed under high pressure and fired at 1300 °C using a special technology. At the penultimate stage, the surface of the material can be given the desired look, including making stoneware stoneware. Finished products are produced in the form of tiles of different sizes.
She, if no drawings and a given structure were applied to her, has a uniform rough surface. This is technical porcelain stoneware, it is usually used for finishing workshops, industrial premises, car service points, garages, etc. As already mentioned, the pattern is created at the pressing stage, it can be a wood-like structure, iron-like, it can be stone-like porcelain stoneware. For the floor (its decoration and design), you can use tiles with any pattern, but best of all with a rough surface.
The fact is that after pressing, the finished products go for polishing and acquire a shiny, mirror-like appearance,become smooth and slippery. It is best, for example, to use polished stoneware for walls - their decoration in this case will only benefit. However, it should be taken into account that the use of polished tiles as a floor covering increases the possibility of injury - the floors will be slippery, and the likelihood of falling on them increases.
The described options for the surface of porcelain stoneware are only a small part of the existing ones. It is a large selection of various types of tiles, their appearance and size differences, a huge range of colors that make this material so popular. And if we add its characteristics to this, then one can only wonder why something else is used for surface finishing in difficult operating conditions.
Tiles used for finishing, including the aforementioned stoneware stoneware, can replace almost any material. At the same time, it is very difficult to find a replacement for them, except to go to the deterioration of the characteristics of the finished coating. It is thanks to its, one might say, unique capabilities that porcelain stoneware is so popular.
