Ceramics and their industrial uses in the heat-treat field have rapidly become an essential sector among thermal processing companies. That’s why it has become important for these companies to have an event to gather, compare notes, share ideas, and gain new insights about the versatility of ceramic materials.
Ceramics Expo has been fulfilling that need for a decade, and it continues to grow as more businesses involve themselves with the needs for ceramics and its various applications.
On April 29-30, attendees will gather at this year’s Ceramics Expo in Novi, Michigan, to connect suppliers, buyers, engineers, and industry leaders with high-tech ceramics applications, while identifying cutting-edge material engineering concepts, meeting hundreds of potential supply chain partners, and exploring groundbreaking applications that will drive a business’s manufacturing and engineering success.
This year’s Ceramics Expo promises to include ceramics innovation for aerospace, automotive, defense and electronics, technical ceramics supply chain resilience, wide bandgap semiconductor materials, ceramics competing with polymers and metals, piezoelectric ceramics, ceramic additive manufacturing and more.
To help you plan your Expo experience, Thermal Processing is including this summary of sessions that could prove useful. For a complete and updated list of sessions, go to www.ceramicsexpousa.com/conference/conference-agenda.
Opening Keynote: The Geopolitics of Critical Minerals in the 21st Century
Tuesday | 9:30 a.m.
The United States has become increasingly dependent on imports from geopolitically controversial regions for its technical ceramic raw materials. How can we protect critical supply chains for technical ceramic raw materials and restore strategically vital industries like semiconductors, aerospace and defense?
Michael Silver is founder and CEO of American Elements, the company that pioneered the import of rare earth elements from China. He will share his unique insight in the state of material supply chains and how to move forward from here.
Opening Panel: Shoring Up Resilience in the Technical Ceramics Supply Chains
Tuesday | 10 a.m.
Technical ceramics are critical for the transition to a renewable energy infrastructure, fuel cells, solid-state batteries, solar power systems, and for the United States’ competitive position in strategic sectors such as aerospace, defense, and semiconductors.
Efforts by the government and industry, notably the CHIPS and Science Act, have started to bring critical supply chains for high-purity raw materials, such as alumina, zirconia, and silicon carbide, back to the United States and restore and expand domestic manufacturing capabilities.
This panel will explore the state of ceramics material supply chains in 2025.
Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing & Application-Optimized Thermal Management Components
Tuesday | 10 a.m.
The talk will introduce electrochemical additive manufacturing technology and showcase where it can deliver enabling thermal management hardware to support higher power densities and improved reliability for advanced semiconductor devices, particularly 3D heterogeneous integration-based (3DHI) packages by applying application optimized cooling structures at the system level, directly onto packaged silicon or at the wafer-level.
Integrity of Connection: Liquid Cooling Case Study
Tuesday | Noon
How can engineers adopting liquid cooling be confident in their design and vendor choices as standards and testing methods are still nascent in many cutting-edge industries such as AI data centers? This presentation will cover practical considerations and include a case study of how a quick disconnect manufacturer and a value-added integrator partnered to help engineers navigate this complexity for liquid cooling hose assemblies. This real-life example will include highlights from test data and end-customer applications. Through this session, engineers will gain an understanding of key questions they can ask for better clarity on performance and reliability factors.
Afternoon Keynote: Making Hydrogen Production More Efficient with Ceramic Catalysts
Tuesday | 1 p.m.
Hydrogen is gaining traction as an option in mobility decarbonization, in aviation as well as automotive, but improving its efficiency and economic viability remains a challenge.
Advanced ceramic catalysts are revolutionizing hydrogen production, optimizing processes such as steam methane reforming and solid oxide electrolysis to make clean hydrogen more sustainable and commercially viable.
Afternoon Panel: Pushing Beyond the Edge in Space, Aerospace, and Defense with Next-Gen Ceramic Materials
Tuesday | 1:30 p.m.
Ceramic materials are critical to the advancement of aerospace, space, and defense technologies. Ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTCs), such as hafnium carbide and zirconium carbide, are essential for thermal protection systems, such as enabling spacecraft to endure extreme re-entry temperatures.
Boron carbide provides radiation shielding for astronauts and sensitive equipment, while advanced ceramics serve as high-performance substrates and insulators in radar and communication systems. Transparent ceramics, including aluminum oxynitride and magnesium aluminate spinel, are used in optical windows for extreme environments.
However, challenges in sourcing, manufacturing and machining, resulting in high costs, limit wider adoption. This session will examine what is happening in the industry to overcome these barriers and expand market accessibility.
Presentation: Fortifying Joints and Medical Devices with Ceramic Coatings
Tuesday | 2:40 p.m.
As regulatory shifts label traditional cobalt-chrome implants as potential health risks, the medical device industry is turning to advanced ceramic coatings for safer, more durable solutions.
Borrowing from aerospace and industrial applications, innovative ceramic coatings — applied via plasma spray — enhance wear resistance, biocompatibility, and longevity in orthopedic implants.
This presentation explores how these coatings, combined with 3D-printed titanium, offer a lightweight, nickel-free alternative, addressing both patient-safety concerns and manufacturing efficiency in next-generation medical devices.
Closing Panel: Outperforming Polymers and Metals with Advanced Ceramics Processing and Machining
Tuesday | 3 p.m.
Technical ceramics are increasingly viable as high-performance alternatives to polymers and metals where low thermal expansion, high-temperature stability, electrical conductivity, and resistance to wear and corrosion are required.
Advanced processing and machining methods, such as ultrasonic machining, hot isostatic pressing, and nanostructuring, expand the market for ceramic applications in aerospace, defense, and medical devices.
Afternoon Panel: Scaling Up Ceramics Additive Manufacturing to Volume Production
Wednesday | 1:30 p.m.
In recent years, ceramics additive manufacturing has turned the corner from limited prototyping and custom parts to commercially viable high-volume production, driven by improvements in speed, precision, material variety, and next-generation melting and sintering techniques.
Advanced CAD software and new processing methods promise to improve scalability and failure rates. Can ceramics additive manufacturing now achieve rapid production cycles, consistent yield and quality at scale with improved material properties and reduced production costs?
Closing Panel: Pushing the Boundaries in Manufacturing High-Temperature Materials
Wednesday | 2:30 p.m.
Production of ultra-high-temperature materials for applications such as glass melting, semiconductor manufacturing, hypersonic aerospace, and nuclear reactor cores is pushing the limits of development and testing of refractory ceramics lining the furnaces used in those manufacturing processes.
Some materials have to be tested in controlled atmospheres — oxygen, nitrogen, inert gases, or vacuum — at temperatures up to 2,000°C. Ideally, integrated testing methods assess multiple properties, such as thermal conductivity, diffusivity, oxidation resistance, and heat capacity within a single system, providing optical, thermal, and physical measurements and even chemical properties.
In this session, specialists will present and discuss innovative methods for characterizing refractory ceramics in extreme environments and the applications they make possible.
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