Material Considerations
A key consideration when choosing inflight china or porcelain products is to ensure your customer’s well being.
Most countries have authorities who inspect inbound products before they are released to the market. However this could be the “bottom of the cliff” if you have not checked this element before you sign-off on products.
If a glaze is made from harmless materials like silica, dolomite, kaolin, feldspar, whiting, ball clay, etc. leaching is only a functional and aesthetic issue. But if the glaze employs metallic colorants (other than iron) or other minerals containing lithium, barium, lead, chrome, etc. then safety and legal liability becomes a concern.
The likelihood of leaching is not just a matter of whether the ingredients used to make a glaze are dangerous. The issue is complex, involving the ways in which the materials are prepared and fired and the formulations that are used. It is possible to use toxic materials safely and it is possible for manufacturers to compromise an otherwise safe glaze by unbalanced mixtures.
It is important to request product data and especially test reports relating to metal release as matter of course.
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