Mantec Scores Major Ultralite Success in Heavy Clay Sector
Mantec Technical Ceramics has secured what is its second largest order ever for Ultralite™, with these products being destined for use in kilns operating in the heavy clay sector. This contract is a repeat order placed by Ceritherm, the French industrial kiln specialist with particularly strong references in the clay brick and tile segments. It comprises a mix of Ultralite ULF-10 loose fill, ULF-12 loose fill, and URC-12 castable. Multiple consignments have been making their way to this important customer, delivering in total around 315m3 of product..
Ultralite is a lightweight, microporous refractory material that provides exceptional thermal performance as a super-insulative mass in tunnel kiln cars. These materials, developed and manufactured by Mantec in its Stoke-on-Trent facility in the UK, reduce the thermal mass inside kiln cars, retaining useful energy inside the kiln rather than it being wasted on adsorption into the heavy base. To give an idea of scale, the product being shipped in this order would effectively insulate around 60 kiln cars.
Ultralite was designed to replace less thermally stable kiln car insulation media such as ceramic fibre, vermiculite and perlite and, in addition to proven insulating performance, the loose fill grades do not degrade and so perform consistently over their whole lifetime. The ULF versions of Ultralite (covering classification temperatures up to 1450°C) are supplied in pellet form – a neat, simple and small aggregate that is easy and safe to handle. These pellets pour very conveniently into awkward spaces and reduce kiln car construction time as no physical packing is required.
In addition to loose fill, Mantec is supplying a significant volume of URC-12 (maximum service temperature of 1200°C), a castable that is manufactured by blending ULF material with high grade refractory aggregates and cements. This versatile product allows a variety of applications to be handled, from the creation of cast shapes that are lightweight with exceptional heat insulating properties, to cement for refractory linings.
The special refractory formulation that is used to produce Ultralite has given it a technological and performance advantage over other refractory materials and as such offers a suite of benefits such as:
• High open porosity
• Low thermal mass
• Low permeability
• Low thermal conductivity
• Low bulk density
• Lightweight
Ultralite is succeeding in this field of operation as it’s more technically advanced. It is chemically inert and outlives ceramic fibre. It doesn’t leave any dangerous residual material as it ages and it effectively never degrades, maintaining its class-leading insulation performance all the way through its life. High-volume brick and tile manufacturers using this material have noted long-term consistent product performance allied to sustained cost and energy savings. Many installations are still using their original Ultralite insulation after 10 or more years. This compares extremely favourably with any previously used material.
