Digitalfire Ceramic Oxides Directory

Logged in as Level 2 access: Logout

Oxides | Minerals | Materials | Recipes | Articles | Glossary | Hazards | Library | MDT | Pictures | Properties | Schedules | Temperatures | Tests | Troubles | Typecodes

SrO (Strontium Oxide, Strontia)

Family	Flux
Weight	103.600

COLE - Co-efficient of Linear Expansion	0.130
MLPT - Melting Point (MP)	2430C (From The Oxide Handbook)

Notes

-Together with CaO, BaO, and MgO it is considered one the Alkaline Earth group of oxides. It has a cubic crystal structure.

-Does not break down till about 1100C (cone 02) so it is not useful as a glaze flux below this temperature. SrO must thus be employed in frit form below 1100C to be effective.

-It has an expansion akin to CaO and a similar decomposition behavior.

-Strontium compounds have not been widely used because of their more limited availability, although the value of this oxide has long been known.

-It is very useful at lower stoneware temperatures (i.e. cone 1) for high gloss, craze resistant glazes which develop a good interface with the clay body. The interface development is thought to occur because of the mixed-oxide effect (bodies do not normally contain SrO).

-Strontium is important because of its non-hazardous, non-poisonous nature. With it, glazes of all temperatures can be made free of lead and barium (in spite of its different expansion, it can be a viable substitute for small proportions of lead).

-Even though it has a very high melting temperature, SrO is effective in combination with other fluxes at lower temperatures (if it is added in fritted form), this is a good example of the 'mixed oxide effect'.

-Like CaO and ZnO, it forms a crystal matte surface on cooling if dominant in the RO group. Conversely, a diversity of fluxing oxides associated with SrO will reduce crystallization.

-SrO has been used with success as a substitute for lead oxide in glazes using smaller amounts. Glossy glazes melting as low as cone 01 without any zinc are possible (long soaking periods may be necessary). Like lead, strontium develops vivid colors.

-Small additions of SrO can improve the surface of viscous high fire zirconium glazes.

-If BaO is replaced in whole or in part with SrO, glazes can develop better interface and have a lower expansion. However, they may also be less elastic than those formed by Ba and this could lead to fit problems where body and glaze are not closely compatible. SrO has a different color response to copper and cobalt; it has a lower expansion, and is a little more powerful at fluxing.

-The lower temperature decomposition of SrCO3 potentially produces an earlier reaction of SrO giving the melt more time to clear of bubbles and pits.

Mechanisms

Glaze Matteness - Micro Crystalline
Like calcia and baria, it will produce a fine crystalline mesh to give attractive satin matte surfaces.

Out Bound Links

(Materials - Material source) Frit - Frit master
Ceramic Frits
(Materials - Closest material equivalent) Strontium Carbonate - SrCO3 or SrO.CO2
Strontianite

In Bound Links

(Glossary) Alkaline Earths
The fluxing oxides of MgO, CaO, SrO and BaO. These...
(Oxides - Substitute) BaO - Barium Oxide, Baria

The future of ceramic recipe, material and physical testing record keeping is here.

Watch the video or sign-up at http://insight-live.com.

Maintain your recipe database on-line

Login to a private account or work with others in a group account (e.g. university).
Nothing to install (access it using your web browser). It is always the latest version.
Easy to import your existing data.
As many side-by-side recipes as you want.
Many ways to search and classify glaze and body recipes.
Glaze and body recipes are robust, with units-of-measure, unlimited pictures with individual titles and descriptions.
Add variations to a recipe; each with its own pictures, descriptions and name/code-number extensions.
Recipes can link to typecodes, projects and firing schedules (all managed in their own areas).
Standard reports and mix ticket reports with last-minute-totalling; variations report as if they are a complete recipe.
Video tutorials, help system, contact form on every page, dedicated messaging and support ticket systems.
It is an industrial-strength database system (unlimited capacity, fast, reliable, scalable).

Imports many file formats

Glaze recipe formats supported: HyperGlaze, GlazeGhem, GlazeMaster, Matrix, INSIGHT XML recipes (single and multiple), INSIGHT SQLite DB files.
Assign a batch number to imports, and later search by batch.
Assign multiple typecodes to imported glaze and body batches (to classify) and search on these later.
Prepend character sequences to glaze recipe names during import.
Import the pictures and pair them to their corresponding records automatically.
One click to automatically export the database to an SQLite DB database file and download it (for use with desktop INSIGHT or just as a backup).
Export and import individual glaze recipes as text or XML.

Perfect for Education

Ceramic study programs can now accumulate material, recipe and testing data year-after-year, students can login and together build a valuable ceramic glaze and body knowledge resource.
Students already have internet connected devices, computers are not even needed in the class.
The Reference Manager gives you quick access to the Digitalfire Ceramic Reference Database.

Copyright 2003, 2008 http://digitalfire.com, All Rights Reserved

Get a free INSIGHT software trial

INSIGHT is ceramic chemistry
calculation software that runs on
Windows, Mac and Linux and talks
to this web site. ()