Pos - 49 CASTELLÓN (SPAIN) SYNTHESIS OF CERAMIC PIGMENTS WITH SPHENE STRUCTURE BY LYOPHILISATION T. Lyubenova (1) , J.M. Pedra (1) , V. Primo (2) , R. Ibáñez (2) , J.B. Carda (1) (1) Dept. Inorganic and Organic Chemistry, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló (2) Institut de Ciència dels Materials de la Universitat de València (ICMUV) stoyanov@qio.uji.es 1. INTRODUCTION A wide variety of ceramic pigments in many shades and with quite satisfactory properties is available. At the present time, there is practically no red pigment that displays good characteristics. The only one that could be really considered red is cadmium sulphoselenide and this has a thermal stability that does not exceed 1000°C, i.e., very low for use in the ceramic field. Nowadays sphene is one of most important chromium-doped pigments used in the ceramic industry, because it is the only alternative for replacing pigments with high cadmium content that display intense shades of red.