Countertops Magazine Archive
A Look at the History of Engineered Stone
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Nearly all of the engineered stone, mostly quartz surfacing, is created using a similar patented process developed by Breton SpA, an Italian company that first began in the production of equipment for working natural stone. It was this company that Sir Marcello Toncelli founded and then drove to solidify his vision of creating Bretonstone, an agglomerate stone material that could be mass produced in as many square meters as were required, in the same color, with the same structure and all at the press of a button.
Now, 50 years later, engineered stone is one of the fastest growing categories in the surfacing materials industry, with dozens of brands all kin to the original Bretonstone.
Breton, originally Brevetti Toncelli and later shortened to Bre-Ton and then the Breton it is today, was established in 1963 at Castello di Godego in the province of Treviso, Italy, and focused in the production of natural stone machinery. However, the company soon began developing technologies and plants for the production of what was once commonly called “agglomerate” as it is made of stone fragments bonded together by resins, now known as engineered stone.
Today Breton is run by Mr. Toncelli's heirs Luca and Dario, and has made its name all over the world as a company that has made research its motto, employing approximately 600 people in the four Veneto production plants and with an estimated turnover for 2013 of more than 150 Million euros.
Those who knew him say the Marcello Toncelli was always one step ahead of the rest, sometimes even so far ahead he might at times seem rash, but he had a dream, and the insight, the passion and doggedness to make that dream come true with the birth of a whole new surfacing product category.
Originally Bretonstone was made of blocks of polyester resin and limestone, materials which were poured by hand into 30- by 50-cm formworks (about 12 by 20 in.), to then be cut into tiles. Later, bigger 300- by 125-cm blocks (118 by 49 in.) were made, and the resulting slabs cut from them had a “Palladiana” (crazy paving) type finish.
In the early 70s, Toncelli had the idea to give the material a different kind of look, similar to granite, in micro grain rather than in macro grain, with the possibility of producing slabs instead of blocks that needed cutting.
And so the idea and the Bretonstone dream was born, and the company was taking bets it would make that dream come true. It developed many new technologies and inventions, all of which were protected by patents.
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Figure 1 - Sir Marcello Toncelli founded what would become Breton SpA in 1963 with a dream that eventually led to the modern material known as quartz surfacing.
Troubles Resolved
There were problems at first that took a long time to resolve. The first products were subject to porosity, as air bubbles got trapped in the resin; Toncelli came up with the idea of putting the mix in a vacuum, and the only thing he could think of at the time to do this was a hot water bottle: he poured in the mix, screwed tight the plug, beat the bottle with a hammer on a bit of wood to make the mix more compact and put the lot in the oven to cure; when the rubber was peeled back, the first Bretonstone tile was born. Thanks to the vacuum, the product was free of porosity and the micro grain effect of the resin was emphasized.
Of course the company still had to come up with a way to use this “hot water bottle” idea on a larger scale and in mass production.
Early on, large slabs were difficult to produce, and had a tendency to curve when curing. It took years to find the proper technical solutions required to make the product perfect, and the development of a vibro-compression vacuum technology to use mixes with a minimum polyester resin content was a big breakthrough.
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Finally, after years of experimentation and research, the first Bretonstone plant for the manufacturing of 125 by 125 cm slabs (about 49 by 49 in.) using stone fragments as the filler was ready to go into production, and this first plant was sold in 1979 to Caremac based in Tunisia. Another of these early plants was soon sold to a company in Venezuela, to be followed by another for Stone Italiana of Verona and others in Singapore, followed by Hidaque in Spain, Santa Margherita in Italy, and Armstrong Flooring in the United States.
As with all new products, it took time for Bretonstone to make its name; for the market to realize its potential, with many showroom installations. Architects didn't know how the resin would behave over time when exposed to the sun and atmospheric agents. The first Bretonstone was characterised by a property that was considered a limit by the market: despite the fact it looked like granite, the mix of polyester resin and limestone had characteristics more akin to marble. It was not as hard as granite and scratched.
In the late 1970's Breton invented the Levibreton KG, a machine fitted with oscillating sectors for polishing hard natural stone in a production line. This lead to the idea of producing Bretonstone with hard siliceous aggregates, which would provide a hardness similar to granite, but were previously much more difficult to work. In 1982 the company supplied Saro of Trento, Italy, with a plant for the production of 125 x 125 cm Bretonstone slabs made of granular quartz porphyry, and in 1984 a similar plant was supplied to the Welsh company Marble Work for the production of slabs made of silica sand, polished with heads fitted with oscillating sectors.
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Modern Quartz Surfacing
Using this new technology, Breton’s engineered stone was as hard as granite and nonporous, giving it much better performance over previous versions. Soon all of the companies using the Breton manufacturing process were switching to silica mixes.
In 1987 the Israeli company CaesarStone bought the first Breton plant using new technology for the production of large 125 by 308 cm slabs (about 49 by 121 in.). At first the plant was designed to use granulated marble, but it was very quickly converted to produce slabs made of silica sand and then ground quartz, in consideration of the fantastic results obtained in the Welsh plant. It was a great success for the company, which now has four plants with plans to install two more.
In Spain, Cosentino, who had bought a plant to use waste from their Macael white marble quarry in 1989, later switched production to quartz with its Silestone product, and this (along with effective marketing in North America) resulted in exponential growth. Cosentino’s first plant was soon followed by a second, a third, a forth, and the company now owns 11 and is the largest producer of quartz surfacing in the world.
The size of engineered stone slabs has evolved in time, with the width increasing from 125 to 144 and then 166 cm (about 49 to 57 to 65 in). Today’s plants can produce “jumbo” slabs at 212 by 367 cm (about 83 by 144 in). And in addition to the size changes, the look has certainly evolved over the years also. Originally, the material mimicked granite, but solid colors were soon produced, followed by veined marble looks and now an “exotic granite” effect, similar to rare and costly Brazilian granites, such as those produced by Cambria in Minnesota and some other companies with the newer technology.
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The size of engineered stone slabs has evolved in time, with the width increasing from 125 to 144 and then 166 cm (about 49 to 57 to 65 in). Today’s plants can produce “jumbo” slabs at 212 by 367 cm (about 83 by 144 in). And in addition to the size changes, the look has certainly evolved over the years also. Originally, the material mimicked granite, but solid colors were soon produced, followed by veined marble looks and now an “exotic granite” effect, similar to rare and costly Brazilian granites, such as those produced by Cambria in Minnesota and some other companies with the newer technology.
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Each manufacturer has added its own touch to the aesthetic quality of the product, with colored glass particulate, crystal, mirrors, semi-precious stones or brass filings to speckle the material with gold-colored metallic accents. And the product has also become more eco-friendly, often using recycled particulates and Biolenica resins made from vegetable oils from renewable sources.
A Worldwide Reality
The engineered stone, or quartz surfacing, category of materials has become quite prevalent around the globe since its inception, with approximately 60 plants directly employing more than 6,000 people and producing more than 20,000,000 sq. meters (more than 215,478,208 sq. ft.) of slabs per year.
Although not everyone recognizes the product when they see it, nearly everyone in the modern world has probably come in contact with it at one time or another under any number of brands: Stone Italiana, Santa Margherita, Caesarstone, Technistone, Cosentino, Cambria, Seieffe, Quarella, Privilege, Silicalia, Hanwha, AKG, Dupont, Vicostone, Diresco, Falat, ZKM, Pokarna, Quartzforms, LG, Belenco, Samsung, Daelim and more. It can be found in airports, hospitals, retail outlets, hotels, schools, shopping centers, residential complexes, religious centers and numerous other locales. And with experts predicting a growth rate of around 10 percent per year for at least the next several years, there is no doubt it will continue to make its mark on the surfacing world for a long time to come.
For more information on Breton SpA, visit www.breton.it.
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