Innovation at Work: The Evolution of Covia’s Industrial Products

Covia has been an innovator in the industrial and energy markets for over 80 years – providing a wide array of high-quality minerals and mineral solutions. Our years of experience, technical expertise, and product range provide us with the unique opportunity to support our customers and create value through product development and innovation.

One of our Covia Values is to “Deliver on Promise.” We’ve taken steps to deliver on promise by expanding the capabilities and availability of our Technical Team to help develop solutions that anticipate the production needs of our customers.

The Technical Team at Covia has evolved over the last few years, with a greater focus on future growth and opportunities. To get a better understanding of where Covia is headed, let’s take a closer look at the evolution of our industrial product strategy.

Laying the Foundation

To promote innovation and meet the ever-evolving needs of our customers, Covia has made recent investments in our infrastructure, equipment, and workforce. Of those investments, one of the most notable has been the structuring and implementation of the Technical Team to handle product development in a meaningful way. This change presented us with the opportunity to expand our development efforts in new and exciting ways.

The Evolution of Covia’s Technical Team and Industrial Product Strategy

The spark that helped shift our focus to updating our industrial product strategy was the development of our LUMINEX^®product, a silica-based, ultra-white filler that is used in engineered stone products. This innovation completely changed our outlook on product development and the way we deliver value to the markets we serve. We updated our industrial product strategy with one goal in mind: to drastically increase the value we can deliver to our customers.

Our Technical Team, guided by the insights uncovered from product and market research, took this opportunity to enhance our current product line in hopes of creating the right product that solves the right problems for the right customer. These changes, however, take time and careful planning. Much of this growth has come as we enhanced the capabilities of our Technical Team by hiring skilled new Team Members to drive innovation and growth.

In addition to the growth in our Technical Team, we have also expanded our machine capabilities. At our Fort Smith plant, we recently installed new ultra-fine grinding equipment to alter the particle size of the minerals we produce. Covia’s micronization services reduce minerals to the proper particle size to work best for a particular application. This capability was key to the creation of our CRISTOBALEX™ product, a specialty silica blend composed primarily of cristobalite, which is transformed from high quality spherical quartz grains, then micronized to enhance the whiteness and performance of coatings that contain the CRISTOBALEX™ product.

Our investment in our machining capabilities has provided us with the potential to create a significant impact across several key industries and opens avenues to serve new markets and customers. We have recently enhanced our capabilities by implementing a state-of-the-art rotary kiln for thermal processing. This advanced thermal kiln enables us to modify the crystalline structure of the minerals we mine, allowing us to tailor solutions to our customers' specific needs. This is significant in the development of materials such as our CERASIL^® product, a high-purity ceramic silica that is produced from high purity crystalline silica feedstock for the formulation and manufacture of ceramic whitewares, enamels, and glazes.

The resources we have invested in recent years to improve our product development strategy have given us a unique opportunity to greatly increase our value-add capabilities. With a wide array of new products and services on the horizon, we look forward to sharing our newest innovations with you as they are developed and become available to the public.

Investing Resources Toward Future Growth

Our technical team is readily available to discuss your unique needs and develop an innovative solution to meet your production demands and environmental obligations. Thanks to these recent investments in our Team Members and facilities, we have laid a foundation to better serve you and your organization’s unique needs for years to come.

Covia is your reliable, long-term partner who can keep up with your demand and deliver top-quality solutions. At Covia, we take pride in Delivering on Promise to provide innovative solutions to customers across the globe. To learn more about Covia’s process and the industries we serve, contact us today.