As to the application in kitchens, both porcelain tiles and sintered stone slabs are popular. You may get the conclusion that they are the same things. But actually, they are different.
Tile means a thin rectangular slab of baked clay, concrete, or other material, used in overlapping rows for covering roofs. Slab means a large, thick, flat piece of stone, typically rectangular. Probably you have got some points about the differences between tile and slab. The tile was initially used for covering roofs. It is baked, or you can say it is also sintered, but the production temperature is different. The temperature for sintered stone is much much higher than the one for porcelain tile. Although porcelain tile now is used for floors and walls, porcelain tile is still porcelain tile. A slab refers to a big piece of stone or wood, and it is bigger and more compact. It is more like a natural stone.
It is undeniable that in some areas people call sintered stone porcelain slab, sounds like sintered stone slab is large-format porcelain tile. That is all! But the fact is totally not!
You may be told that the raw materials are different, and the products are different of course. But the key way of distinguishing these two products is the water absorption. The water absorption of porcelain tile is no more than 0.5%. The water absorption of sintered stone is no more than 0.09%. The water absorption of our sintered stone (LingBiao Sintered Stone) is lower than 0.04%. It means the water-resistance of porcelain tile is good, but the water-resistance of sintered stone slab is excellent!
Why the water absorption is different? Besides the different raw material, and the different temperature of sintering, the other point is press force. We use SACMI moulding press which outputs 33000 tons pressure for moulding, making the density of the sintered stone slab is much much higher than the porcelain tile.
Besides, the thickness of porcelain tile is usually from 6mm to 9mm, but the thickness of sinterted stone can be 3mm, 6mm, 9mm, 12mm, 15mm, and 20mm. So sintered stone can be applied more widely， from slim door surface to thick countertop.
Different raw material, different producing process technology bring the different features of porcelain tile and sintered stone slab.
