FreeShip- Fused Silica, 200 Mesh, Very Pure Amorphous Quartz, Optical - (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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Go directly to the 2nd section down for a description of this material. Before going any further, it is interesting to note that Fused Quartz is amorphous (non-crystalline). It's a unique substance. When amorphous, silica can be called "quartz glass", fused quartz, or "fused silica". In nature, silica, or quartz always occurs as a crystalline material. The main reason to make amorphous quartz grain and powder is for it to be melted down into crystal clear pure quartz windows which stand up to very high temperatures and pressures.
Getting back to the more mundane, fused silica can be used as a resin filler, a refractory additive/aggregate in refractory cements like Secar 71, as a raw material in ceramics, as an additive/aggregate in portland cements (added to white cements would be most appropriate), in ceramics, and other more exotic applications. The description (or wall of text) below is aimed at its possible use in pozzolanic concretes.
No matter which type of cement(s) you use in your concrete mix, you still need to add an aggregate. 'Regular' concrete uses 2 aggregate sizes, ordinary cheap sand and gravel (of differing sizes depending on the usage of the concrete. 'Regular' Mortar is like regular concrete, it uses portland cement, but the aggregate is only sand. It also has an additive, lime, to make it more plastic.
There are many different aggregate materials used with high performance concrete. They can be the same aggregates used for regular concrete. The countertop, decorative flooring industry uses a great variety of aggregates, some very exotic, especially when the surface is ground and polished with diamond, when exposes the internal aggregates used.
I'm going to list just a few in this section, differing primarily by color; white, dark, and medium.
There are other materials in my shop that could also be used as aggregates. They just need to be hard and of the mesh size you desire your aggregate to have. But please keep in mind that if an "aggregate" becomes too fine, it will not act as an aggregate, but as a replacement for cement that will be of greater or lesser reactivity with the cement. Fine clays like metakaolin react chemically with the cement and alter its properties in a positive way (making a high performance concrete). Other very fine particle sized materials of lesser reactivity may actually weaken the concrete.
Some of the High Performance Concretes as defined by the standard terms 'concrete' and 'mortar' would actually be classified as 'mortars' because of the lack of a gravel size aggregate. A traditional 'gravel' is considered anything from a "pea gravel" (small pebbles about the size of peas) on up to 1/2" or larger. By that definition I don't carry a "gravel". You can find many gravels at a masonry/building supply store.
Aggregates that we do carry would be classified as "sand" (either 'fine' sand, about 100 to 35 mesh, or 'coarse' sand with larger particles above 35 mesh). They are listed in scattered locations, so to find them just do a store search for "sand". Others are not necessarily labeled 'sand' and would be used for their darker or lighter colors: Granular Magnetite, Fused Silica, Kyanite, and Crushed Glass.
The 'Sands' we carry are Coarse Silica Sand (what you would find if you went to a home depot), a 70 mesh Silica Sand, Olivine sand, and just a sand "sand", ordinary brown sand of mixed particle size that's used for standard mortar and concrete, sometimes called River Sand (found in several grades at a home depot or masonry/building supply).
There are some other finer materials I have that are used as concrete colorants, most often Red or Black Iron Oxide because they are relatively inexpensive (Magnetite is actually a form of black iron oxide). Any other powdered pigment would work as a colorant but most would be cost prohibitive. BlueConcrete.com has a full line of colorants ( http://www.blueconcrete.com/color-pigments/ ). Colorants are neither aggregates or reactives (with some exceptions).
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Fused silica of this particular mesh size is pretty fine to be used as the only aggregate in a mix. But, if you blend it with larger mesh aggregates it will work just fine. If you are using the more expensive aggregates that are accurately divided into mesh sizes, it can be beneficial to mix some "fines" (smaller particles) with coarser particles. They particles will tend to fit closer together. River sand is an example of an aggregate that already comes with as a blend of many differing particles sizes (some of them quite small).
Fused silica makes a good aggregate if you want a pure white color and additional hardness in the final product. One use is as a refractory aggregate along with a refractory cement like Secar 71. Fused silica is expensive relative to many other aggregates. This 200 mesh size is not flowable, it behaves as a dense powder. Fused quartz is used in many demanding applications where a transparent glass that is very thermally stable and temperature resistant is needed. The crushed particles do not appear transparent, although there is a degree of translucency, mainly in the coarser particle sizes.
The Wiki article on it is here although it does not distinguish between "fused silica" and "fused quartz":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_quartz
"Fused quartz or fused silica is glass consisting of silica in amorphous (non-crystalline) form. It differs from traditional glasses in containing no other ingredients, which are typically added to glass to lower the melt temperature. Fused silica, therefore, has high working and melting temperatures. The optical and thermal properties of fused quartz are superior to those of other types of glass due to its purity. For these reasons, it finds use in situations such as semiconductor fabrication and laboratory equipment."
Here is a site that does assert there's a difference between fused silica and fused quartz:
http://www.translume.com/index.php/resources/item/50-fused-silica-fused-quartz-whats-the-difference
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This is one of a series of listings We're making for materials that can be used to enhance concrete and other cementitious mixes.
A while back I decided I wanted to migrate away from using polymers like epoxy, urethane, polyester, and other 'resins' for making castings. One reason was the high cost of organic resins and another was nuisance/safety factor of using them and inevitably the hydrocarbon solvents you have to use to clean up drips and spills.
Over the years I'd already used gypsum cements as casting materials, but their physical properties (when cured) weren't always to my liking. Their surfaces are kind of 'dead' unless you add a coating, and they are brittle (low tensile strength). I'd also tried using concrete/mortar mixtures and was even more unhappy with their cured properties.
The properties I wanted from a casting material were: high hardness and tensile strength (above any existing cement), whiteness (so I could add pigment to make it any color I wanted), and a degree of translucency (about like marble). I started researching the web and discovered some things that led me to believe I could formulate my own casting material.

Please note that we have other materials in our shop which could fit into this 'cementitious mixes' category. To locate them do a shop search on "Colloidal", "Thixo", "Cab-o-sil", "Cement", "Sand", "Kaolin", "Pozzolan" and "Calcium": Calcium Chloride is a cement accelerator and Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate (raw gypsum) is a pozzolan).-

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Reviews

Reviews (2)

Average:

Feb 23, 2020

Excellent. Very fine powder mixes well for paints and other uses.

Helen Baq

Jan 10, 2020

Perfect! Neatly packaged and shipped promptly.

1stlightleilei