Development of a Recovery Process for Sanitary Ware Using Laser Technology

The ceramic sanitary ware industry is widespread all over the world, employing thousands of people and, consequently, having a high financial impact on the global and national economy. Although the objective is always to achieve maximum efficiency in these products’ manufacturing process, some defects arise, preventing a small percentage of them from being sold. To promote a sustainable economy of resources for the company, in this work a new recovery method is proposed, to avoid products without the required quality level to be submitted to a new complete production cycle, thus promoting their repair in a simpler and more effective way. With the implementation of laser technology for the recuperation of sanitary ware, replacing the refiring process in the kiln, it is estimated that 9€ will be saved per product, on 5% of an annual production rate of 200,000 sanitary ware parts of all sizes and shapes, consisting of a 90,000€ save per year.