Vortec Corporation

Welko Industrial S.p.a.

Maurizio Sanavia

James G Hnat

James C Simpson

The present invention relates to a process of forming ceramic tiles having the appearance of tiles produced from clays. The process includes melting a material to form a glass melt, treating the glass melt to produce a solid glass product, grinding the solid glass product to produce glass particles having a particle size of less than 200 microns, mixing the glass particles with a first additive to form a glass powder mixture having a composition of 55 to 99 wt. % glass particles and 45-1 wt. % first additive, forming the glass powder mixture into tiles by dry pressing, where the tiles have a primary crystalline phase selected from the group consisting of nepheline, diopside, anorthite, wollastonite, melilite, merwinite, spinel, akermanite, gehlenite, crystalline phases based on iron substitutions in the crystalline phase, and mixtures thereof. The process includes a devitrifying step where the solid glass product is devitrified prior to the grinding step or the glass particles in the tile are devitrified after the forming step.

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Canonica D'Adda, Italy

Maurizio Sanavia