Ceramic materials in the context of "Corrosion"

Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engineering is the field dedicated to controlling and preventing corrosion.

In the most common use of the word, this means electrochemical oxidation of a metal reacting with an oxidant such as oxygen (O₂, gaseous or dissolved), or H₃O ions ( H, hydrated protons) present in aqueous solution. Rusting, the formation of red-orange iron oxides, is perhaps the most familiar example of electrochemical corrosion. This type of corrosion typically produces oxides or salts of the original metal and results in a distinctive coloration. Corrosion can also occur in materials other than metals, such as ceramics or polymers, although, in this context, the term degradation is more common. Corrosion degrades the useful properties of materials and structures including mechanical strength, appearance, and permeability to liquids and gases. Corrosive is distinguished from caustic: the former implies mechanical degradation, the latter chemical.

Microparticles are particles between 0.1 and 100 μm in size. Commercially available microparticles are available in a wide variety of materials, including ceramics, glass, polymers, and metals. Microparticles encountered in daily life include pollen, sand, dust, flour, and powdered sugar. The study of microparticles has been called micromeritics, although this term is not very common.

Microparticles have a much larger surface-to-volume ratio than at the macroscale, and thus their behavior can be quite different. For example, metal microparticles can be explosive in air.

Ceramic engineering is the science of creating objects from inorganic, non-metallic materials. This is done using either heat or precipitation reactions on high-purity chemical solutions at lower temperatures. The term includes the purification of raw materials, the study and production of chemical compounds, their formation into components, and the study of their structure, composition, and properties.

Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, with long-range order on atomic scale. Glass-ceramics may have an amorphous or glassy structure. They can be formed from a molten mass that solidifies on cooling or chemically synthesized at low temperatures using methods such as hydrothermal synthesis.