When ceramic semi-finished products – like slips, glaze or grit suspensions – sit in holding tanks waiting to be processed, they can become vulnerable to bacterial contamination. This can seriously alter their properties, especially their rheology, disrupting key parameters such as viscosity, yield stress, and overall stability. The result? A negative impact on production performance and product quality.

These issues become even more pronounced in the summer, when higher temperatures accelerate bacterial metabolism, making microbial activity faster and more aggressive.

In this episode, we dive into how bacterial growth can compromise the essential behavior of ceramic suspensions, leading to downstream defects and increased waste.

What triggers a bacterial outbreak? What conditions make it more likely? How can we prevent it, or at least keep it under control? And which additives should we use, depending on the type and severity of the degradation?