How Are Kyocera Ceramic Knives Made?

How are Kyocera Ceramic Knives Made?

by

Takeshi Ishii

Have you ever wondered how Kyocera ceramic knives are made? It\’s actually a pretty straightforward process, you\’ll soon get a grasp of the basics.

Ceramic knives are made from zirconium dioxide, often referred to as zirconia. If you appreciate diamonds, then maybe you\’ve been told of cubic zirconia. It is a form of zirconia used to make artificial diamonds which happen to be nearly as pretty but far more affordable. Acquiring the raw material First we need is to locate a sand rich in zircon. this sand is taken to a plant, where the zircon is isolated. Zircon isn\’t actually the ceramic we\’re looking for, but instead a mineral known as zirconium silicate. You shouldn\’t be mislead, zircon and zirconia sound similar but are quite different. To generate zirconia an additional process is needed, which we won\’t go into only because I don\’t want to bore you with chemical formulas. At the ceramic knife manufacturing facility Kyocera\’s trademarked ceramic material is Zirconia 206. This component in fine powder form is pressed at a high pressure (around 300 tons) in a knife-shaped mold. The end result is a solid piece, but rather delicate. It must now go through an extra process in an attempt to end up being harder: To be fired in a kiln at elevated temperatures, much like traditional ceramics. This is actually the longest part of the whole process, it takes about 2 days. Very well, so at the moment we have a surprisingly hard material. The problem is that our knife is as dull as a butter knife. What should we do about it? We need one additional step. The edge is sharpened with a diamond-coated sharpening wheel. Why must the wheel need to be diamond-coated? Purely because zirconia is an extremely hard material, having a hardness of 8.2 mohs while diamond has 10 mohs. As an aside, steel is graded at 5-6 mohs. This is precisely why you can\’t sharpen the ceramic blade as easily, you must have the right sharpener, or ship it to Kyocera and they\’ll sharpen it on your behalf. At the the end of the manufacturing process we are left with an incredibly sharp blade. As opposed to metallic knives, ceramic knives will never need to be honed and they will maintain their sharpness for much longer!

For more information, please visit

kyoceraceramicknives.net

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