Ceramics are also used in oil spill containment booms that corral oil so it can be towed away from ships, harbours, or offshore oil drilling rigs before being burned off safely. Reusable, lightweight ceramic tile make NASA's space shuttle program possible. While the list of examples could go on and on, I think you can get the picture of how important ceramics has been, and will continue to be to humankind. Structural ceramics include applications such as industrial wear parts, bioceramics, cutting tools, and engine components. Electronic ceramics, which has the largest share of the advanced ceramic market includes capacitors, insulators, substrates, integrated circuits packages, piezoelectrics, magnets and superconductors.
Ceramic coatings find application in engine components, cutting tools, and industrial wear parts.
The applications under chemical processing and environmental ceramics include filters, membranes, catalysts, and catalyst supports. The beginning of the advanced ceramics era has been said to have started approximately 50 years ago with the expanding use of chemically prepared powders. 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.