Ceramic materials are special because of their properties. They typically possess high melting points, low electrical and thermal conductivity values, and high compressive strengths. Also they are generally hard and brittle with very good chemical and thermal stability. Ceramic materials can be categorized as traditional ceramics and advanced ceramics. Ceramic materials like clay are categorized as traditional ceramics and normally they are made of clay, silica, and feldspar. As its name suggests, traditional ceramics are not supposed to meet rigid specific properties after their production, so cheap technologies are utilized for most of the production processes.
What are ceramics used for? The interesting question is why ceramics behave like this—and the no-less-interesting answer boils down to materials science : it's all to do with how the atoms inside are bonded together. That explains how most materials work In metals, for example, atoms are relatively weakly bonded (which is why most metals are fairly soft); their electrons are shared between them in a kind of sea that can "wash" right through them, which is (simplistically speaking) why they conduct electricity and heat . A material like rubber , on the other hand, is made of long-chain molecules (polymers) that are very weakly attached to one another; that's why raw, white, latex rubber is so stretchy and why black, vulcanized rubber (like that used in car tires) is harder and stronger, because heat-and-sulfur treatment makes strong cross-links form between the polymer chains, holding them tightly together. All the electrons are locked up in bonds of various kinds (...

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