History

Sialon was originally discovered in the early 1970s at Newcastle University and was the first known man-made ceramic alloy.

This attracted great interest because at the time the only way to fabricate dense silicon nitride based ceramics was by hot pressing, which is very limited in the shapes that can be made.

Sialons could be pressureless sintered and therefore shaping methods such as pressing and slip casting could be utilized.

The material and its fabrication were developed further during the 1970s and early 1980s by Lucas Industries, who had financed the original University work. A company, Lucas Syalon Ltd, was then set up to commercially exploit this technology.

The business has grown steadily through the 1990s to the present day and is now known as International Syalons (Newcaslte) Ltd.