Grog, CE47, Calcined Mullite, Mulcoa, 325 Mesh, Description

Complete Grog, CE47, Calcined Mullite, Mulcoa, 325 Mesh, Description

Grog is normally used in ceramics as a clay body additive which gives texture or "tooth" to a clay when green (pre-fired). But this is such a fine grog it would not help much with that.  It would decrease shrinkage in the finished ceramic and would stiffen up the wet clay.  Grog needs to be as coarse or coarser than 100 mesh to improve green strength and to "open-up" a clay body during firing.

This turns out to be a "CE47" (Mulcoa) grog and we carry 2 coarser CE47 grogs, a 14x28 mesh, and a 20x50 mesh. We also carry some CE70 (Mulcoa) grog.  The bag in this listing came from a supplier who still had some and although it was not written on the bag, their website stated clearly that it was a Mulcoa "47" calcined mullite. I had discovered by another path that the "CE" grogs referred back to the old C-E Mineral Co 47, 60, and 70 calcined Mulcoa mullites that Imerys now owns. The ceramics database, Digital Fire:
{ https://digitalfire.com/4sight/material/mulcoa_70_mullite_1053.html } lists mesh sizes that those grogs were produced in (including a 325 mesh).

Here's the alternate path I took to figure out what grogs the "CE47" and "CE70" were, if you're interested:
There is only one supplier I found that carries CE"XX". Information about those grogs was very hard to find but they appeared to be part of the "Mulcoa" product line. There was a mineral company that mined and processed industrial refractory minerals in Roswell, Georgia called "C-E Minerals, Inc." The closest thing to a website is here:
{ https://makersrow.com/c-e-minerals }:
"Introducing C-E Minerals a worldwide supplier of high quality aluminas, alumina-silica calcines, and fused minerals". It was founded in 1967, and was associated with the "Mulcoa" brand. It appears to have been gobbled up by the industrial minerals behemoth, Imerys, in the 1990's. Imerys now markets Mulcoa.
The Mulcoa connection is found in their 3 calcined mullite products which have tech data here:
{ https://imerys-refractoryminerals.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Mulcoa-range.pdf } .
The 3 Mulcoa mullites are Mulcoa 47, Mulcoa 60, and Mulcoa 70. Then I found a forum which mentioned a fellow with a bag that said "Mulcoa Mulgrain by C-E Minerals" So, putting all that together the CE47 and CE70 are names given by the supplier for some C-E Minerals mullite that the supplier shortened into just "Grog CE47" and "Grog CE70". If you go to Digital Fire here:
{ https://digitalfire.com/4sight/material/mulcoa_70_mullite_1053.html } (same as above link) you will find "Mulcoa 70 Mullite" which I maintain is the same thing as the CE70. By the way, Digital Fire sheds light on the numbers 47, 60, and 70, they are approximate alumina contents. So Mulcoa 47 Mullite (aka "CE47"):
"....Mulcoa 47 is 65% mullite and 20% glass and 15% cristobalite (the others have no cristobalite)". So, this is a calcined mullite grog.
Analysis:
Mulcoa 47 Calcine Grog
Mullite grog
Oxide Analysis Formula
TiO2 1.90% 0.052
Al2O3 46.80% 1.000
SiO2 50.00% 1.813
Fe2O3 0.95% 0.013
Oxide Weight 217.19
Formula Weight 217.19

Grog is a hard, calcined (fired at high temperatures) clay or clay-like material which is then ground to a specific mesh size. Grogs are made of many different clays. The grog in this listing has a fine 325 mesh particle size. 
Wikipedia has a sparse article of a particular type of grog. They treat it as if any other grog is not grog. Times have changed.   { https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog_(clay) } :
"Grog, also known as firesand and chamotte, is a raw material for making ceramics. It has a high percentage of silica and alumina.
It is normally available as a powder or chippings, and is an important ingredient in Coade stone (an ancient type of ceramic stoneware)...
Grog is composed of 40% minimum alumina, 30% minimum silica, 4% maximum iron(III) oxide, up to 2% calcium oxide and magnesium oxide combined....
Grog is used in pottery and sculpture to add a gritty, rustic texture called "tooth"; it reduces shrinkage and aids even drying. This prevents defects such as cracking, crows feet patterning, and lamination. The coarse particles open the green clay body to allow gases to escape. Grog adds structural strength to hand-built and thrown pottery during shaping, although it can diminish fired strength.
The finer the particles, the closer the clay bond, and the denser and stronger the fired product. The strength in the dry state increases with grog down as fine as that passing the 100-mesh sieve, but decreases with material passing the 200-mesh sieve."

This CE47 grog has the usual "blocky" particle shape (in a very fine mesh size), there are some that have an elongated "needle-like" shape and strengthen the clay body more than usual during throwing or shaping. Kyanite is one such grog which we also carry in 2 mesh sizes.