About the book
Currently, both in science and in industry, quartz has numerous applications that continue to grow in line with technological development. In the same way, the specifications that are considered in the mineral raw material markets are diversified, from very restrictive quality, for high-tech artifacts, to the most eclectic for abrasives and glass-ceramic applications. In the same way, the diversity of contaminations that are accepted in the different industrial batches are very varied and imply a great diversity of application and behavior tests in transformation routines.
From the outset, natural sources are more suitable for some applications, but in any case, it is necessary to ensure deposits with large monomineralic masses, as homogeneous and pure as possible, which allow viable mining in both quantity and quality. These conditions tend to occur mainly in granitic pegmatitic deposits and in metamorphic or hydrothermal quartz veins. Furthermore, more and more ornamental varieties of quartz enter architecture, design, and jewelry.
It is proposed here to present a holistic view of quartz from its descriptive mineralogy to industrial applications, including the origin and characteristics of the different types of mineral deposits and the physicochemical performance tests that distinguish the quartz batches for different forms of application with consequences for the marketing of the corresponding raw materials.
