A novel prestress strategy to improve thermal shock resistance of bone china body

The poor thermal shock resistance of bone china body still limits its market value to a large extent. Here a novel prestress way is reported to improve the flexural strength and thermal shock resistance by constructing the sandwich structure bone china body, which consists of bone china matrix (intermediate layer) and prestressed coatings (upper and lower surface layers). The key to this strategy is to optimize the mismatch in coefficient of thermal expansion between the coating and the matrix to maximize the prestress. The bone china with the prestress strategy exhibits a flexural strength of 154 ± 5 MPa, representing an increase of 45% compared to pristine bone china body (108 ± 3 MPa). As a result, the thermal shock resistance of as-prepared the bone china body is enhanced from 140℃ to 180℃, meeting the standard of traditional feldspar porcelain. It is believed that the simple and cost-effective prestress design holds great potential for improving the flexural strength and thermal shock resistance of bone china.