Fired bars of a bentonite used in porcelains! Is this possible?

Perhaps you are shocked that a material this dark and dirty (the bars are fired from cone 1 to 7 oxidation, bottom to top), would be used in porcelains. Why? Bentonites are very difficult to process. This is just raw bentonite (HPM-20), dry ground to -325 mesh (to guarantee no fired specks). That grinding does not reduce the soluble salts (that melt by cone 4) or the iron (which accounts for the dark-burning color). These undesirable properties must be tolerated (as whiteness loss) to get the plasticity supercharge 3-5% of this can impart. Why not use super-white bentonites or smectites instead? They can cost ten or even twenty times more!

Related Pictures

A super-fine, super-plastic wild clay that comes with baggage

#1: I got it in a foot-thick layer in a gravel pit in Leader, Saskatchewan (half way up the slope). I code numbered it L3822.
#2: The two lower bars are L3822, fired at cone 1 and 2 (at cone 2 the center Aero-chocolate textured material bursts out). The upper bars, 3822A, are a 50:50 mix with Pioneer kaolin (also cone 1 and 2).
#3: L3822A fired at cones 04,03,02,01,3 (top to bottom).
#4: 90:10 mix of M2, the mid-temperature red burning material Plainsman Clays uses, and L3822 (Cone 06,04,03,02,01 bottom to top). The 10% addition supercharges the M2 plasticity beyond what is practical to dry.
#5: The pure material, leather hard mugs (with exceptionally thin walls (because it is so plastic).
#6: The pure material cracks, only one of the 50:50 mix survived drying (even though they were dried over a period of weeks).
#7: Bisque fired 50:50 and pure material mugs.
#8: Cone 6 mug of the 50:50 mix. Notice it gases and clouds the clear glaze.
What is this clay? It is not a balanced material, but highly bentonitic. With lots of fluxes (like KNaO, CaO, MgO), it matures below what is possible with mixes of feldspar and kaolin. Its super fine particle size (and thus high surface area) enable imposing its maturity (even when mixed with a refractory material like kaolin). Treating this as a bentonite seems best, adding no more than 5% to improve body plasticity. Notice that it fires to a much nicer surface than the commercial raw bentonites shown below.

Soluble salts as a white powder on a commercial bentonite

A dry lump of bentonite with solubles as a powder

Bentonite is a super-plastic clay. This block of it took months to dry, the material really holds on to its water! It shrunk to about half the size and, of course, broke up into many pieces in the process (because bentonite has such a high drying shrinkage). That white powder is calcium sulphate, it is soluble and comes to the surface with the water as the clay dries. The finer the manufacturer grinds the material, the more salts are liberated. In most ceramic applications for commercial raw bentonites, these soluble salts are not an issue (but the iron content certainly can be). The reason these salts can be tolerated is that bentonite is normally employed in bodies and glazes in the 1-5% range.

Links

Materials	HPM-20 Volclay Bentonite
Materials	Bentonite Bentonite can make a clay body instantly plastic, only 2-3% can have a big effect. It also suspends slurries so they don't settle out and slows down drying.
Glossary	Efflorescence A common problem with dry and fired ceramic. It is evident by the presence of a light or dark colored scum on the dry or fired surface.

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