How ceramic floor tiles are made

A ceramic tile can ride through a 125-meter kiln and come out fired in as little as 50 minutes.

stations: 6
things upstream: 47
raw sources: 19
steps from the ground: 8

The short version

About half of a ceramic tile is clay, with feldspar and other minerals making up the rest. The mix is wetted, dried back to a powder, and pressed hard into shape. Pressed tiles are dried, coated with glaze made from ground glass and color, and fired on rollers through a long kiln.

Blend the body mix

Clay is milled with other minerals and water into a slurry, then pumped into a large dryer that turns it into a fine powder. The recipe decides how the tile will shrink, how hard it will be and what color it fires to.

Goes in
Clay Feldspar Silica sand Water
Press the tile flat

Powder drops into molds and is compacted under enormous pressure into a green tile of even thickness.

around 5,000 psi
Dry the pressed tile

Warm air drives off the remaining moisture. Pressed tile needs only about half an hour.

about 250 F
Glaze and decorate

A curtain of primer falls across each tile, then a glaze of frit, which is made from glass, and color goes on by spray or waterfall. Inkjet printers can lay a pattern over it.

Goes in
Glass Ink
Fire in the kiln

Tiles roll through a long kiln that climbs gradually to full heat. The body hardens and fuses, and the glaze melts and bonds to the surface.

around 2,000 F
Sort for flatness

Finished tiles are checked for size, flatness and surface faults, sorted into grades and boxed.

End of the lineCeramic floor tile

Worth repeating

The earliest known glazed bricks were found in the Elamite temple at Chogha Zanbil and date to the 13th century BCE.
A machine can glaze about 2,000 square feet of tile a day, while a hand worker manages about 50 pieces.
Recycled material can make up as much as 70 percent of a ceramic tile.