Multiple properties – manifold uses

SILICA has become one of today’s key strategic raw materials for the high-tech industries

Paints and Plastics, Polymer Compounds, Rubber, Sealants and Adhesives

Crystalline silica, as quartz and Cristobalite, in its finest flour form is used as reinforcing filler. Silica flour provides resistance against abrasive actions and chemical attack. Self-cleaning exterior wall coatings and heavy-duty offshore or marine paints are typical examples. The intrinsic properties of silica flour promote its use in plastics for encapsulating electronic components.

Ceramics

Glass

Silica is the major ingredient in virtually all types of glass. The principal glass products include containers (bottles and jars), flat glass (windows, mirrors, vehicle glass), tableware (drinking glasses, bowls, decanters), lighting glass (light bulbs, fluorescent tubes), TV tubes and screens (including flat screens), decorative glass optical glass, etc. The glass fibres, mainly used for composite reinforcing or in decorative textiles, are made from fine ground silica flour.

Foundry Casting

Crystalline silica has a higher melting point than iron, copper and aluminium. This enables castings to be produced by pouring molten metal into moulds made out of silica sand and a binder. Castings form the basis of the engineering and manufacturing industries. Quartz and cristobalite flours are the main components in investment casting (also called precision casting) for the production of specialist products such as jewellery, dental bridges, aviation turbines and golf clubs.

Filtration

Building Applications, Specialties and Commodities

The construction industry is founded on silica sand and flours. There are a host of specialist applications including cement manufacture, silica and aerated concrete blocks, glues for roof and floor tiles, flooring and rendering compounds, white line markings, roofing felt and cement and resin injection systems, asbestoses sheets, fiber boards etc.

Sports and Leisure

Oil field application

Special grades of silica sand that are of coarse size and have spherical particles are pumped down oil wells and into the oil-bearing strata to improve permeability and the flow of oil into the well.

Agriculture

Silica is used in farming, market gardening, horticulture and forestry in applications such as soil conditioner or carrier for fertilizer and animal feed additives.

Chemicals

Cristobalite sand and high purity quartz are used to produce a range of silicon chemicals including sodium silicate, silica gel, silicones, silicon tetrachloride, silanes and pure silicon. Pure silicon is used for silicon chips, the heart of the computer world. Silicon products are used in the production of detergents, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Metallurgical Industry

Quartz is the raw material for the production of silicon metal and ferrosilicon. Silicon metal is used in the production of alloys based on aluminium, copper and nickel. Ferrosilicon is a major alloying ingredient for iron and steel. Metal ores are purified in the furnace by silica sand that is transformed into metal slag.

Blasting

We Silica is used for sand blasting purposes, as micro blaster, for micro graving, for filter sand, as glass beads for sand blasting, as paint stripping blasting sand.