Ceramic – Glass
Raw materials for Glass Manufacturing:
As mentioned the iron content is allowed in the silica sand to a certain extent, as such material can be used for making coloured glass. The 3 most commonly produced categories of glass with silica sand that has very limited iron content are Colourless Glass, and then with medium iron content Clear Flat Glass can be produced. Silica sand with significant amount of iron content will be used for producing coloured glass. For producing crystal glass, borosilicate glass, optical glass, and colourless container the iron content has to be very less than 0.03%. For producing float glass up to 0.10% of iron content is allowed. For coloured glass iron content of .25% is allowed and for producing insulating fibres up to 0.30% of iron content is allowed. Silica Sand with less iron content can be used for glass applications which require Silica sand with higher iron content by addition of extra iron to the batch. But it is difficult to use silica sand with higher iron content for lower iron content application. For this the silica sand has to be processed by acid leaching methods to remove the iron content. Though this might increase the operational cost, it is a good methodology to follow in places where the Silica Sand with less iron content is not sufficiently available at a cheaper price.
To be Contd…..
