In article , Ed Huntress
says...

"Industrial ceramics are commonly understood to be all industrially used
materials that are inorganic, nonmetallic solids. Usually they are metal
oxides (that is, compounds of metallic elements and oxygen), but many
ceramics (especially advanced ceramics) are compounds of metallic elements
and carbon, nitrogen, or sulfur."

This portion of your excellent discussion is what does it for me,
the fact that cemented carbides are composed to some large degree
of cobalt metal means that I would tend to shy away from the
'ceramic' label. Though I have to agree that the issue is a
confusing one - here the thing's name really depends on who
is doing the describing: physicist, ceramist, chemist, machinist,
etc.

Jim

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