Quartz: Difference between revisions
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Added a section on the production of high quality, low defect quartz as it might be used to produce the timekeeping devices that are all but necessary for even moderately advanced electronic devices |
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'''Quartz''' is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in planet's continental crust, behind feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are classified as gemstones. Since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings. | '''Quartz''' is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in planet's continental crust, behind feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are classified as gemstones. Since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings. | ||
== Production == | |||
High purity quartz (well above conventional gemstone grade) as used in modern timekeeping devices can be made through a quite lengthy and resource intensive process from relatively crude silica (as can be extracted as a byproduct of refining most ores or simply from dirt) by placing the crude silica at the bottom of a large autoclave which is filled nearly 1/2 full with a 0.8 molar sodium carbonate solution in water and which has seed crystals (or if seed crystals are needed, rough wires) suspended from the top. The autoclave is then heated at the base to around 340°C, slightly cooled at the top to a temperature between 325 and 330°C, and kept at a pressure of 700-800 bars for up to a year (or until the desired size is reached at a likely growth rate of around 0.4mm/day). | |||
== Dependencies == | == Dependencies == | ||
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Latest revision as of 05:56, 5 May 2025
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in planet's continental crust, behind feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are classified as gemstones. Since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings.
Production
High purity quartz (well above conventional gemstone grade) as used in modern timekeeping devices can be made through a quite lengthy and resource intensive process from relatively crude silica (as can be extracted as a byproduct of refining most ores or simply from dirt) by placing the crude silica at the bottom of a large autoclave which is filled nearly 1/2 full with a 0.8 molar sodium carbonate solution in water and which has seed crystals (or if seed crystals are needed, rough wires) suspended from the top. The autoclave is then heated at the base to around 340°C, slightly cooled at the top to a temperature between 325 and 330°C, and kept at a pressure of 700-800 bars for up to a year (or until the desired size is reached at a likely growth rate of around 0.4mm/day).
Dependencies
See also
References
| This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Quartz, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors). | 
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