Ceramic fiber fabrics, also known as ceramic fiber textiles, include ceramic fiber cloth, ceramic fiber tapes and ceramic fiber ropes. They are excellent high temperature resistant materials which can be used in many industrial fields, especially in the high temperature resistant field. Their continuous working temperature can reach 1000 ℃ and the highest temperature can reach 1260℃ for a short time. However, when we use ceramic fiber fabrics for the first time and when the temperature reaches between 200 - 300℃, the fabrics will appear smoke or sometimes even appear a small fire. What is the reason for this?

Ceramic fibers are a short type of fibers, usually at the length of 100mm – 200mm. The short fibers are very difficult to spin into ceramic fiber yarn. In order to weave them into fabrics, they must be bonded together with some organic fibers. Besides, glass fibers or stainless steel wires also need to be added into ceramic fibers so that they can be spun into ceramic fiber yarn and then be further woven into ceramic fiber cloth, ceramic fiber tapes and ceramic fiber ropes. The percentage of the organic fibers in the ceramic fiber textiles is about 15%. The glass fiber or the stainless steel wire acts as the reinforcement function to strengthen the ceramic fiber fabrics. Organic fibers are not high temperature materials. At the temperature of 200 – 300 degrees C, the organic fibers will burn and appear smoke and the color of the fabrics becomes a little black. This is a normal phenomenon. When the temperature rises above 200 – 300 degrees C, the organic fiber will be totally burned off and the smoke will disappear.   

The smoking of ceramic fiber fabrics during use is caused by the carbonization of the organic fibers. This phenomenon will only occur during the first use. As the temperature continues to rise, the organic fibers are completely carbonized and the products will gradually return to the original white colour. At this time, what remains are all inorganic materials of ceramic fibers, and no smoking phenomenon will occur during the subsequent use. So there is no need to worry about the subsequent uses.

By heat treatment of the ceramic fiber fabrics, this phenomenon will eliminate. Some suppliers can provide ceramic fiber textiles through pre treatment, but the prices of the pretreated ceramic fiber textiles are higher than the untreated fabrics.