Ceramics and Glass

For thousands of years pigments have been used to create beautiful colors in all aspects of our lives and cobalt compounds have been used to provide one of these colors by giving a rich blue color to glass, glazes and ceramics.

Cobalt based colors have been found in a wide range of archeological artifacts - in Egyptian pottery dating from 1400BC, in pottery found in the ruins of Pompeii and in the pottery of the Chinese Ming dynasty. Today cobalt is still widely used by the ceramic and pigment industries and Shepherd Widnes is an essential supplier.

Our cobalt products include Shepco Carbonate and Shepco Oxide. These products are available in a number of grades which have been specifically tailored with the right purity and particle morphology for individual applications.

The porcelain enamel industry also uses fritted glass as a coating. This glass is of varying compositions, and usually includes a nickel or cobalt containing base coat, followed by a titania-bearing cover coat. Porcelain enamel frits are melted, then quick-cooled (quenched), and processed further by grinding, to allow application by a number of different means. This frit is the basis of coatings on appliances and sanitary ware. Shepherd makes a special cost effective grade for the frit application.