For example, the Bayer process for the production of alumina powders initially grew from spark plug production. While these powders would be considered relatively low grade by today's standards, they were more pure and offered more control over the composition, microstructure, and crystal structure over minerals-based ceramics. Today, the market for advanced ceramics is large and growing as they continue to replace more traditional materials in many applications while providing the only material solution in other applications. In many cases, ceramics are used with other materials to make up only part of an overall system. This is especially true in the electronics field.
Ceramic powders are a necessary ingredient for most advanced ceramics.
These include oxides, nitrides, carbides, and borides. The U.S. ceramic powder industry consists of approximately 40 producers and suppliers. Over twenty of these are suppliers of oxide powders. Improvements are occurring however, in areas such as powder processing, shape forming, non-destructive evaluation, machining, standardization and the development of a materials property database. CMCs are attracting increasing attention due to the broader diversity of, and improvements in, the properties they can often provide.