New here - this subject interested me as ceramics have a lot of real world uses in industry. Kilns use ceramics as a lining, and i have ceramic knives. i looked up the wiki for ceramics and found these practical everyday uses:
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Types of ceramic products
For convenience, ceramic products are usually divided into four sectors; these are shown below with some examples:
Structural, including bricks, pipes, floor and roof tiles
Refractories, such as kiln linings, gas fire radiants, steel and glass making crucibles
Whitewares, including tableware, cookware, wall tiles, pottery products and sanitary ware
Technical, is also known as engineering, advanced, special, and in Japan, fine ceramics. Such items include tiles used in the Space Shuttle program, gas burner nozzles, ballistic protection, nuclear fuel uranium oxide pellets, biomedical implants, coatings of jet engine turbine blades, ceramic disk brake, missile nose cones, bearing (mechanical). Frequently, the raw materials do not include clays.[6]"
link to wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic
It's interesting that it is also used in ballistic vests, maybe used in armor this will reduce damage from projectiles, it's heat resistance will also help if you accidentally step in lava...
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Classification of technical ceramics
Technical ceramics can also be classified into three distinct material categories:
Oxides: alumina, beryllia, ceria, zirconia
Nonoxides: carbide, boride, nitride, silicide
Composite materials: particulate reinforced, fiber reinforced, combinations of oxides and nonoxides.
Each one of these classes can develop unique material properties because ceramics tend to be crystalline."
I looked up some carbides and tungsten was one that jumped out to me. Tungsten Carbide cutting tools reduce the heat generated by the friction and have a sharper cutting edge. Maybe this could be placed in mining operations as an upgrade to the tools used.
(sorry geeked out on ceramics today for some reason) 