Over a period of time with the advent of technology, Indian tiles have grown primarily in terms of sizes from small sizes like the mosaics (any sizes below 100x100mm), which is common in the 1960s to 200x200mm in the 1980s, followed by 300x300mm, 400x400mm in the 1990s, while proceeding to 300x600mm and 600x600mm in the early 2000s. Thereon, the sizes continue to grow larger and larger by the day
Transfer of technology from west to east has hastened the process of tiles revolution in which numerous production methods appeared across time, giving rise to tile differences that we see and use in the market today. As a result, this leads to endless beauty and proliferation of choices one has as customers are a discerning lot. Tile suppliers want to spoil customers for choices.
Tile produced can resemble natural stones i.e. granite or marble; wood; metal; fabric; slates; terrazzo; and many other natural elements. It helps reduce the usage and demand for a natural source of materials that are scarce while its prices soar incredibly. Subsequently, the tile demand will continue to grow as it helps to substitute these dearth environmental materials as per se while efforts are gearing towards eco-friendlier tiles by using recycled ingredients.
Due to immense competition, tiles need to be differentiated to meet diverse market expectations like colors, designs, shapes, textures, budget, practicality, technical specification, and so forth. In the current market, tile is differentiated generally to Soluble-Salt Tile, Double-Charge Tile, Glazed Tile, Glazed Color-Body Tile, and Full Body Tile.
A production process where tiles use a screen print or roto-print where water-soluble metallic salts are applied onto the tile surface via the design template before firing. This liquid will penetrate the tile body with a depth of about 1 to 2mm, creating designs that have been pre-fixed by
the template of these screen/roto prints. This type of tile is high in demand due to its price advantage and usually comes in Polished surfaces.
A process where two different layers of powder and pigmentation are fed through a press to form two layers. The top layer will often have a thickness of 3 to 4mm thick and define its design, while the bottom layer has its rudimentary clay body. This tile popularity often gains a price advantage over the Full Body Tile. We will explain the latter in the texts below. Physically, you can observe the side of the tile where you have two layers of different colors.
A process where a thin impervious liquid glass is applied onto the tile surface to give its design or effects before firing. In modern-day technique, glazed digital printing (imagine using a digital printer to print photos on a piece of paper) is used by generating high-resolution images with countless designs on a computer and printing them onto the tile surface to meet expectations from customers.
4. Glazed Color Body Tile
The process is similar to the Glazed Tile, except that the use of the tile body has a close color semblance to the color of its glaze. In general, this gives an overall feel of a duplicated Full Body Tile where the color of the tile body and its top glazing is close.
5. Full Body Tile
This process is naturally expensive, where thorough natural clay and color pigmentation are fused to form a piece of tile. In India, it is well known as Homogenous Tile or Technical Tile. If you view the actual, you will notice the top, bottom, and sides are of the same thorough materials. This type of tile is recommended highly for use in high traffic or hard-wearing condition.
we have 5 groups of tiles characterized by water absorption (WA) rate. The followings are the group of tiles:
· Group b1A with WA less than 0.5%
· Group b1B with WA between 0.5% to 3%
· Group b2A with WA between 3% to 6%
· Group b2B with WA between 6% to 9%
· Group b3 with WA above 10%
Under the standard, all tiles are defined as ceramic tiles regardless of which group it belongs to. It is only for commercial reasons that tiles are being segregated into porcelain and ceramic tiles. As such, in commercial terms, these ceramic tiles adopted names in the bracket as follows:
· Group b1A with WA less than 0.5% [porcelain tile]
· Group b1B with WA between 0.5% to 3% [porcelain tile]
· Group b2A with WA between 3% to 6% [ceramic tile]
· Group b2B with WA between 6% to 9% [ceramic tile]
· Group b3 with WA above 10% [ceramic wall tile]
With this set of guidelines by ISO, and integrating with the set of different types of tiles as above, we can surmise the relevant group of tiles as follows:
Type of Tiles Group
Soluble-Salt Tile Porcelain Tile of Group b1A
Double-Charge Tile Porcelain Tile of Group b1A
Glazed Tile Porcelain Tile of Group b1A & b1B;
Ceramic Tile of Group b2A & b2B;
Ceramic Wall Tile of Group b3
Glazed Color-Body
Tile Porcelain Tile of Group b1A
Full Body Tile Porcelain Tile of Group b1A & b1B As a matter of fact, you will notice that majority of tiles available in the market are Glazed Tile and Soluble-Salt Tile as these have price advantages over others
