After the Laba Festival, it’s the New Year, and brick workers have successfully entered the new year with the "winter ballad". The author recently learned from conversations with people from various brands that most factories have stopped kilns one to two months ago ( The last thing to turn off the engine is before New Year's Day). On New Year's Day, various media platforms gave New Year's messages summarizing 2019 and looking forward to 2020. It seemed that everyone felt that this "most difficult year in history" was a bit careless, but they all emphasized confidence and hope. how so? The building ceramics industry has actually been updating, innovating and upgrading, and these improvements can be traced in terms of materials, equipment, technology, etc. So today, through the year-end summary series, the author will take stock of the ceramics in 2019 New materials, new equipment, and new technologies in the industry.
Part of the information in this article comes from the speech delivered by Zhang Boqing, Vice Chairman of the Ceramics Branch of the Chinese Ceramic Society, Executive Chairman of the Mechanical Energy Saving and Environmental Protection Branch of the China Building and Sanitary Ceramics Association, and Professor of Jingdezhen Ceramics University, at the China Ceramics New Year’s Sharing and Outlook Forum— - "New Progress in Ceramic Equipment and Breakthrough Points for Future Innovation". Special thanks to Professor Zhang for sharing.
▲ Zhang Baiqing gave a speech at the forum "2019-2020 Chinese Ceramics New Year's Eve Sharing and Outlook"
Zhang Boqing, a professor at Jingdezhen Ceramics University, said at the "2019-2020 Chinese Ceramics New Year's Eve Sharing and Outlook" forum last year (actually just two weeks ago): "Environmental protection is under high pressure, the coal-to-gas policy continues, and the price of raw materials rising; the shortage of labor resources and the increasing labor costs are the real problems that manufacturing companies are currently facing; and to solve these problems, it depends on the progress of upstream companies, and they must be efficient and innovative in the future. ”
一
Over the past year, the entire ceramic machine equipment industry has made great progress in terms of innovation and quality. Professor Zhang Boqing summarized it as "five modernizations": automation, large-scale, industrial design, digitalization, and intelligence.
I have to mention upsizing here. The increasing size of ceramic tiles is definitely a major development trend and trend, especiallyIn 2019, we can clearly feel it at the Ceramics Expo. From the Spring Ceramics Expo, every household has large slabs, to the Autumn Ceramics Expo, slates are blooming everywhere. Large boards with specifications such as 600×1200mm, 750×1500mm, 900×1800mm, 1200×2400mm and other specifications can no longer accommodate the company’s ambitions, and the corresponding supporting ceramic machines are also becoming “more” larger.
On June 19, the Henlitai HT36000 ultra-large press successfully completed a one-time trial production at the Mona Lisa production base and was officially put into operation on July 4. This press with a tonnage of up to 36,000 tons can produce products with a maximum specification of 1600× 3600mm; it is understood that its applicable thickness range is between 3 mm and 3 cm, which means that domestic presses can already achieve mass production of the ultra-large thin or thick bricks seen at this year's Bologna exhibition in Italy.
▲China Ceramics Network reporter visited the beautiful ultra-thin slate production base
While everyone is eagerly looking forward to another breakthrough in domestic ceramic machines, news comes from Hubei that 3mm ultra-thin rock slabs have been officially mass-produced. On December 23, the Meifa ultra-thin slate production base under the Meifa Group held a commissioning ceremony in Honghu, Hubei. It mainly produces 1200×3600×3mm ultra-thin slates. It is understood that the production base has introduced Italian System complete line equipment, back fiber mesh production line, and laser linear arbitrary cutting machine production line. The entire line integrates fabrication, pressing, glazing, inkjet, kiln and finished product cutting. This move to break foreign technical barriers and cross-border competition is hailed as a key step on the road to intelligent manufacturing in China and will usher in a new era of slate.
In addition to presses, kiln equipment companies are also paving the way for large-scale products. At present, many companies such as Keda, Zhongyao, and Modena have launched 3850mm wide-body roller kilns; and Zhongpeng Thermal Energy customized the F10000A17 large-scale roller kiln for Xinmingzhu. The plate kiln supports production with a maximum specification of 1600×3200mm.
In order to meet the production of large-board products, equipment such as glaze lines and inkjet printers have also undergone "big" transformations, especially inkjet machines, which are getting wider and wider. For example, inkjet equipment that can print large plates of 1600mm×4800mm,The maximum width of the whole machine is 2 meters. Not only that, multi-channel and large ink volume also provide hard conditions for large-format products to achieve high-definition decorative effects, such as Xinjingtai’s large-format inkjet printer, with a printing width of Up to 1800mm, 16 channels can be printed at the same time.
▲Amazing exhibits at the 2019 Guangzhou Ceramic Industry
Hope Digital In order to comply with the development trend of ceramic large panels, it launched the BDD ceramic large panel inkjet machine. The author was also fortunate to see it at the 2019 Guangzhou Industrial Exhibition. Its true appearance. It is understood that the first equipment of this model has been put into use in Nobel, and is currently stably producing 1600×3200mm and 1600×4800mm ceramic large panels online; Hope Digital is the first to launch all-digital large panels in New Pearl The waterless glazing line adopts three machines in series, which can synchronize transmission and positioning more accurately. It is currently stably producing 1600×3200mm ceramic large plates online.
In addition to the above, there are also a large number of blank blasting machines, edge grinding machines, polishing machines, deep processing and other equipment tailored for the production of large slab/rock slab products. The space is limited, so I will not introduce them one by one here.
二
In addition to "growing bigger", how can upstream equipment companies provide high-quality services and guarantees for ceramic production in the future. Regarding this issue, Professor Zhang Boqing pointed out in his speech: “The breakthrough points for innovation in the future are quality revolution, flexible manufacturing, green manufacturing, and intelligent manufacturing. Upstream companies should work hard in these four directions.”< /p>
(The picture comes from the PPT shared by Professor Zhang Baiqing at the meeting)
With the advancement of industry, the production of the building ceramics industry has moved from mechanization to automation, and then to the current hot topic-intelligentization.Only throughOnly by continuously reducing the labor intensity of workers, improving product quality, and reducing energy consumption can truly high-efficiency production be achieved. In 2019, "Industry 4.0" and "Made in China 2025" will be promoted step by step, and smart factories will be the next direction of efforts for manufacturing companies.
Guangdong Guanxing Ceramics is a leading enterprise in terms of intelligence. It invested 170 million yuan to build China's first ultra-high three-dimensional intelligent automated storage center. The smart warehousing center has a total of 44 three-dimensional smart storage areas, storing tile products on 13 floors, with nearly 60,000 cargo spaces, and can store about 8 million square meters of tile products. It can realize automatic packaging and palletizing of products, barcode scanning and detection. After passing the test, they will be conveyed by the elevator to the fully automatic conveying platform and quickly and accurately input into the warehouse. The stacker will complete the storage and retrieval of the designated goods. The entry and exit operations of the warehouse are intelligently controlled. The whole process only takes 10 minutes. The warehouse was officially completed and put into use at the end of 2018. After a full year of operation in 2019, it is in good condition so far.
On November 2, Shuncheng Ceramics Group held a lighting ceremony for its slate intelligent production line at its Mingcheng base. According to the author's understanding, Shuncheng Ceramics Group has introduced China's first Italian Sacmi infinitely long continuous forming large slate smart production line. The entire production line starts from a press From fabrics to kilns, polishing and other equipment, we all use the most advanced equipment in the industry. This smart slate production line integrates the five major advantages of "color, aesthetics, texture, production, and technology". Through the Italian Continua+ continuous molding process, it not only breaks through the size limitations, but also breaks through in intelligent production and demonstrates ceramic tiles for the building ceramics industry. More possibilities for production.
The so-called smart factory actually has two major construction conditions, one is intelligent preparation, and the other is an information integration platform. To truly realize intelligent production, the following points need to be met:
1. Factory real-time tracking and recording, equipment operation tracking and improvement, equipment alarm and diagnosis, energy, materials, management, and preventive maintenance;
2. Then upload the production process data to the local platform, and adjust the process parameters of the production equipment after receiving the instructions;
3. Based on edge computing and using a closed-loop control system, it can conduct self-real-time analysis and processing by sensing the status of incoming and outgoing materials and the status of the equipment itself;
4. The equipment not only senses the status of incoming and outgoing materials and is equipped with its own status sensors, but also has digitalization and the ability to carry out computer remote control.
So "soft" preparation is as important as hardware. Without soft equipment, it is impossible to achieve "digitization, networking, and intelligence."
In the past year, we have seen the blooming of intelligent preparation, breakthroughs in various technologies, and the "5G era". So how far are smart factories and Industry 4.0 from the ceramics industry? Whether it will be a major opportunity for manufacturing companies to achieve disruptive innovation and counterattack, time will tell us the answer.
三
After talking about new equipment and new technologies, let’s talk about new materials.
Ceramic tiles are becoming more and more functional. It is not uncommon to add tourmaline to raw materials in order to produce negative oxygen ions in ceramic tile products. This is also controversial in the industry. In contrast, it seems more practical to work on anti-skid performance. In the past, most anti-slip ceramic tiles were sprayed with a layer of emery on the surface to enhance the anti-slip coefficient. However, in addition to the disadvantage of not being anti-fouling, its rough surface may also cause secondary injuries to people who fall. Dahong Glaze spent 10 years developing a new anti-slip raw material that is “fine but not thick, astringent but not slippery”. It has four major advantages: anti-fouling, wear-resistant, anti-slip, acid and alkali resistance, and can basically meet the anti-slip needs in many production and living spaces.
▲Amazing exhibits at the 2019 Guangzhou Ceramic Industry
In addition, water-based inks and digital glazes also made major breakthroughs in 2019. At the 2019 Guangzhou Ceramics Industry Exhibition, EFI Cretaprint launched the world’s first hybrid inkjet printing solution, includinghybrid inkjet printers and Digital glaze channel water-based inktechnology. Compared with oil-based ink, water-based ink has a higher water content, so the cost is lower. In the past, water-based inks have always had the disadvantage of poorer color development than oil-based inks, and EFI CretaThe water-based ink used by print has a wider color range, while reducing the separation of glaze ink, and has stable color presentation. It has strong expressive power in bright yellow and wine red, further expanding the range of ceramic products. color gamut.
The development and research of ceramic colored glazes is a very active field in today's ceramic industry. Most of the innovations in ceramic products we often talk about are innovations in color and texture. With the innovative breakthroughs in these dry digital glazes, functional inks, water-based inks and other raw materials, the decorative effect of architectural ceramic products will also rise to a new level.
Speaking of colored glazes, let me make another digression.
I believe everyone is paying close attention to this matter. Not long ago, the American Ferro tile coating business will be sold to Esmalglass-Itaca Group for US$460 million (approximately 3.22 billion yuan). -Fritta) company. Everyone is speculating that if the acquisition is completed, whether a giant group with annual sales exceeding 10 billion will be born in the global color glaze industry; whether it will make big moves that shock the industry in terms of investment in material research, it is worth looking forward to .
2020 has arrived. In another five months, we will be able to witness with our own eyes the new changes in materials, technology, equipment, etc. in the ceramic construction industry.
From May 26th to 29th, the 2020 Guangzhou Ceramic Industry Exhibition will bring together the innovative power of ceramic people from all over the world. Let’s meet in Area A of the Canton Fair Complex in Guangzhou!
