Aspirational visits to disappointing evening classes, damp garden centres – the word ceramic does not, perhaps, immediately conjure up high-tech thoughts.
Ceramics are nonetheless used in a huge range of advanced applications. Generally defined as non-metallic and inorganic materials, they stop spacecraft from disintegrating and burning across the sky as they re-enter the atmosphere, replace ageing and damaged bones and one variant protects soldiers in bulletproof vests.