Raw materials for industry - sand white quartz

What miracles are not cooked on Earth forman! For example, an amazing sight is white sand. From a distance you will not understand at once: whether it is drifts in the middle of summer, or mountains of granulated sugar, or perhaps table salt or another chemical? And only getting closer, taking it on the palm and waking through your fingers, you realize that this is white sand, the photo of which is given in this article. And it consists of quartz - a mineral distributed on Earth. Quartz is part of the mineral composition of oligomictic and polymictic sands, which form desert barkhans, dunes of sea coasts, shallow waters.

Natural white sand

Quartz sand deposits occur invalleys of rivers. The white river sand is the cleanest, it usually does not contain pollutants, as well as mountain quartz sand, weathered vein outcrops. It is quite possible to meet nuggets of precious metals or their minerals in deposits of natural quartz sand. It happens that white sand is buried beneath the thicknesses of other sedimentary rocks and is mined by the quarry method. It usually contains contaminants in the form of impurities of clays, sandy loams, loams, polymictic sands, which occur in the thickness of quartz sand in the form of interlayers and lenses.

Creation of nature and hands of human beings

White sand, consisting of 90-95% of quartz,meets not so often and is very much appreciated as raw material for many industries. The lack of natural sand can be replenished - to obtain artificial quartz sand, using crushing and sorting equipment. For the production of sand, monolithic blocks of milky white quartz are used, crushing which, and sifting the destroyed rock, produces sand with certain and desired particle sizes (fractions). From natural sand artificial is distinguished by exceptional monominerality, acute angularity of grains of sand.

Where to use quartz sand

White sand is used for glass production.It is subject to such requirements: 95% of it is quartz, it should be medium-grained (0.25-0.5 mm diameter of grains), without admixture of substances that are hardly soluble in the glass mass, without harmful impurities of minerals containing iron, chromium, titanium (they color the glass and increase its light absorption). A good glass sand is one that is 98.5% quartz and includes iron oxide not more than 0.1%.

Quartz glass is needed for manufacturingchemical utensils, in instrument making - it withstands significant temperature changes. For forms and rods in the foundry industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metals are also used quartz sand, called metallurgy molding. The quality of this sand is determined by its granulometric composition and the shape of the particles that affect the gas permeability, and the amount of impurities that reduce the refractoriness of the sand. It is necessary that in the sands there are no minerals with a high content of sulfur and phosphorus, which are harmful for metal casting. Apply quartz sand for the production of grinding wheels and "nazhdachki" - for this, sand is melted with graphite and carborundum is obtained, second only to diamond in terms of hardness. Exclusive mud capacity (sorption capacity) of quartz sand is used in filters for water purification from iron and manganese oxides. Apply this sand in construction for plastering surfaces and for the production of finishing panels, concrete blocks. They are used in landscape design. And even coffee, warmed in marmite, filled with white quartz sand, will delight the fragrant taste.