This category encompasses the various chemical substances manufactured in the production of ceramics.

For purposes of this category, a ceramic is defined as a crystalline or partially crystalline, inorganic, non-metallic, usually opaque substance consisting principally of combinations of inorganic oxides of aluminum, calcium, chromium, iron, magnesium, silicon, titanium, or zirconium which conventionally is formed first by fusion or sintering at very high temperatures, then by cooling, generally resulting in a rigid, brittle monophase or multiphase structure.

(Those ceramics which are produced by heating inorganic glass, thereby changing its physical structure from amorphous to crystalline but not its chemical identity, are not included in this definition.)