Quartz sand is an important industrial mineral raw material and is widely used in water treatment, glass, mechanical casting, artificial quartz stone, metallurgy, ceramics, functional fillers, superhard materials, chemicals, petroleum, glass fiber, calcium silicate boards, photovoltaics, and semiconductors , lighting, fiber optic cable, aerospace, optics and other fields.
Among them, photovoltaics, semiconductors, lighting, fiber optic cables, aerospace, and optics are high-end application fields, and the raw materials are mainly high-purity and ultra-high-purity quartz sand.
1. Water treatment industry
Quartz sand is the earliest and most widely used wastewater treatment filter material. Quartz sand is mainly used as a filter medium in the water treatment industry. It can efficiently filter out inorganic and organic impurities in water and has strong interception ability.
2. Glass
Silica is the structural main body of glass, which can ensure high strength and good chemical stability of glass. Therefore, quartz sand is the most important industrial mineral raw material in the glass industry, including flat glass, daily glass, ultra-white glass, photovoltaic glass, quartz glass, etc.
3. Mechanical casting
Silica sand (quartz sand) is the most widely used and used foundry sand. Silica sand for foundry is refractory particles with quartz as the main mineral component and a particle size of 0.020mm-3.350mm.
4. Artificial quartz stone
Artificial quartz stone is made of natural quartz stone (sand, powder), silica sand, tailings slag and other inorganic materials (the main component of which is silica) as the main raw material, and uses polymer or cement or a mixture of the two as the binding material.
5. Metallurgical industry
In the metallurgical industry, quartz can be used to make refractory materials (silica bricks), smelt silicon alloys (ferrosilicon, silicon manganese, silicon chromium) or as flux. Those with higher silica content can be used as raw materials for industrial silicon production. Therefore, according to the purpose, metallurgical silica (quartz) can be divided into silica for refractory materials, silica for ferroalloys, and silica for industrial silicon.
6. Ceramics
Quartz is one of the main raw materials for ceramic production and plays a vital role in ceramic blanks and glazes, including daily ceramics, high-silica porcelain, etc.
Commonly used quartz raw materials in the ceramic industry include vein quartz, quartzite, pink quartz and other types. In ceramic applications, quartz purity, iron and titanium content, particle size, particle shape, etc. are all important quality indicators.
7. Functional filler
Quartz sand is ground and processed into silica powder, which can be used as functional filler in many fields such as copper-clad laminates, epoxy plastic sealants, electrical insulation materials, rubber, plastics, coatings, adhesives, cosmetics, etc.
8. Super hard materials
Black silicon carbide is made from quartz sand, petroleum coke and high-quality silica as the main raw materials, and is smelted at high temperature in a resistance furnace. Green silicon carbide is made from petroleum coke and high-quality silica as the main raw materials, with salt added as an additive, and smelted at high temperature in a resistance furnace.
9. Chemical industry
In the field of chemical processing, quartz sand is the main raw material for the production of potassium silicate, sodium silicate and various forms of silica. Sodium silicate (also known as sodium silicate, sodium silicate) is a soluble silicate made by mixing quartz sand and alkali in a certain proportion and melting it at high temperature.
10. Petroleum industry
At present, there are three main types of proppant widely used in the petroleum industry: natural quartz sand, artificial ceramsite and coated proppant, of which quartz sand accounts for 80%, ceramsite proppant accounts for 10%, and coated resin sand accounts for 10%.
11. Glass fiber
Glass fiber is an inorganic non-metallic material produced from major mineral raw materials such as pyrophyllite, quartz sand, limestone, dolomite, boronite, and boronite, and chemical raw materials such as boric acid and soda ash.
12. Calcium silicate board
Calcium silicate board is made of siliceous materials, calcium materials and reinforcing fibers as the main raw materials. Quartz sand is one of the most important raw materials in calcium silicate products, accounting for 40% of the raw material quality of calcium silicate boards.
13. Photovoltaic industry
In the photovoltaic industry, high-purity quartz sand is mainly used in quartz products such as diffusion tubes, carriers and arc method crucibles for polycrystalline silicon and monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic production.
14. Semiconductor field
In the semiconductor field, high-purity quartz sand is mainly used to produce standard semiconductor-grade quartz tubes, quartz rods, quartz crucibles and ultra-high-purity semiconductor-grade quartz tubes and quartz rods.
15. Lighting industry
Quartz glass has good transmittance from ultraviolet light, visible light to infrared light (160nm~4500nm), and is an important raw material in the field of industrial lighting.
16. Optical fiber cable
High-purity quartz sand is mainly used to manufacture optical fiber preforms and auxiliary materials in the field of optical communications. High-purity quartz sleeve is an indispensable outer material of optical fiber preform, and quartz target rod, tail rod, etc. are support materials for optical fiber drawing. The core rod and quartz sleeve have very high requirements on technical parameters such as material purity and hydroxyl content.
17. Aerospace
Quartz fiber is an inorganic non-metallic fiber made of high-purity quartz sand through a special process. It is widely used in missiles, aircraft, satellite radomes, satellites, warship antennas, electromagnetic windows (interference and anti-interference equipment), and structural materials for stealth technology. (Aircraft, warships, submarines), etc.
18. Optical field
Quartz glass produced by electrofusion process and gas refining process uses high-purity quartz sand as raw material.
Components made of quartz glass are key components in optical instruments.