Quartz is an important non-metallic mineral resource and the basic raw material for hundreds of industrial products in many fields such as glass, mechanical casting, electronics and electrical engineering, metallurgy, petroleum, refractory materials, chemicals, ceramics, photovoltaics, semiconductors, etc. Foundry sand is the second largest application field of quartz resources besides glass. The main sources of resources are quartz sandstone, natural quartz sand, etc. Natural silica sand is the most basic, largest and most important raw and auxiliary material in the casting process.
Raw sand
Raw sand is the most basic material for modeling in casting production. The most widely used one is quartz sand (commonly known as silica sand). The products include scrubbing sand and roasting sand, which are obtained by simple physical processing of natural silica sand. Raw sand other than quartz sand is generally called special sand, including: zircon sand, sintered magnesia sand, chromite sand, etc.
Coated sand for casting
Coated sand is mainly composed of base sand, coating material and additives. Among them, base sand usually uses quartz sand. Its particle shape and size have a direct impact on the performance of coated sand. High-quality quartz sand has uniform particles and smooth surface, which helps to uniformly cover the resin and improve the strength and heat resistance of coated sand.
Coated sand is mainly used in two major directions: casting modeling and oil and gas extraction. Among them, the coated sand used in the casting modeling process is called casting coated sand, and the coated sand used in the oil and gas extraction process is called resin coated proppant. Casting coated sand is widely used in the casting industry and is the main molding material used in the production of parts such as automobiles, motorcycles, high-speed railways, agricultural machinery, and engineering machinery.
3D Printing Sand
The traditional casting sand mold preparation process has many problems, such as long manufacturing cycle, low precision, and serious material waste. These problems not only affect the quality and production efficiency of castings, but also limit the development of casting technology. The emergence of 3D printing technology provides a new way to solve these problems.
3D printing sand is a new type of casting sand with a faster growth in usage. 3D printing sand usually requires high quartz particle strength, SiO2≥90%, Al2O3≤10%, CaO+MgO<0.6%, Na2O+K2O<0.4%, mud content≤0.2%, and particle size 0.053～0.3mm.
Regenerated Sand
Regenerated sand is a casting material that uses special equipment and technology to process and process waste (old) sand after casting, so that it has performance and value again. It can be recycled as the basic material of coated sand or other sand products.
Sand core
Sand core is the main component used for casting mold (core) manufacturing in casting production. It is generally made of coated sand through a special mold (core) making equipment in a mold (core) with a unique consolidation process. In addition to the properties of general molding sand, core sand is also required to have higher strength, air permeability, yield and collapsibility.