Quartz is one of the most abundant minerals found on Earth. Composed of silicon and oxygen atoms in a continuous crystalline structure, quartz is extremely hard and resistant to chemical and physical weathering. It exists in many forms and locations but when crystallized in its highest purity it has properties that make it essential for various modern technologies.
Obtaining and Purifying Quartz
High Purity Quartz is most commonly extracted through open pit or underground hard rock mining methods. The raw quartz is crushed and processed to isolate individual crystals. Further processing through techniques like hydrometallurgy and froth flotation are used to remove impurities like iron, aluminum and alkali metals that can compromise the quartz's optical and piezoelectric properties. Achieving purity levels above 99.9% renders the quartz suitable for the most demanding applications. Stringent quality control during purification is critical given even trace impurities can degrade performance.
Uses in Electronics Manufacturing
Perhaps the biggest driver of high purity quartz demand is the electronics industry, which relies on its unique piezoelectric properties. When compressed, quartz generates an electric voltage, and vice versa. This principle enables quartz to function as the timing devices and filters in virtually every type of electronic device. It is a key material in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, computer chips, smartphones and more. Estimates indicate a single mobile phone contains over 10 grams of high purity quartz crystal. As electronics become ever more ubiquitous, versatile and miniaturized, quartz's crucial role ensures ongoing importance.
Optical Applications
Another major use of high purity synthetic quartz is in optical applications that demand exceptional transparency from ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths. Products like quartz glass, tubes and rods are instrumental in various industries such as semiconductors, solar, lighting, telecommunications and industrial lasers. Whether used as crucibles for silicon crystal growth or windows for extreme UV lithography, high transparency quartz helps enable exciting technological advances. Its resistance to heat, penetration by foreign atoms and susceptibility to cleaving also make it well-suited for demanding optical systems. Optical quartz consumption is projected to rise steadily with growth in related market sectors.
Specialized Industrial Applications
Beyond electronics and optics, high purity quartz finds numerous more specialized industrial uses. Semiconductor process tubes transport wafers through reactor chambers with minimal contamination. Medical and scientific instrumentation like diffusion pumps, resonators and lasers depend on quartz's purity and piezo qualities. The solar industry utilizes quartz as process equipment and receives benefit from its transmissivity. Even environmental monitoring systems employ bi-products of quartz purification like silica gel as adsorbents. Prospective frontier applications involving photonics, sensing and energy further attest to quartz's versatile enabling role across multiple high-tech domains.
Ensuring Supply of Strategic Material
With over a decade projected globally for typical large-scale quartz mining projects, long term supply is an essential consideration. Major producers actively pursue new, high-grade sources and more efficient processing techniques to meet expanding demand. Recycling of budding waste streams also shows potential. However, as quartz mining becomes more capital intensive at lower grades, geopolitical certainty and availability become larger factors for end users. As a strategic material across multiple industries crucial to economic well-being and technological progress, cooperation on responsible development of this uniquely important mineral is important to all stakeholders. High purity quartz possesses exceptional and irreplaceable properties that have made it integral to product development and manufacturing across various electronics, optics and specialized industrial sectors. Though plentiful overall, the specialized high-grade quartz needed for technological progress requires significant effort to obtain, process and provide with long term supply certainty. With demand tied closely to overall innovation, high purity quartz may well become more strategically valued as global development continues its trajectory. Ensuring its sustainable and equitable provision will thus merit cooperation across government, industry and supply chain participants for technological and socioeconomic benefit alike.
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The global high purity quartz market was valued at US$ 728.11 Mn in 2017 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2018 to 2026, according to a new report titled ‘High Purity Quartz Market: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2018–2026’ published by Transparency Market Research (TMR) Rise in the demand for semiconductors is driving the market.
Heartlands of the semiconductor production are Japan, Germany, South Korea, and California.
Quartz Corp, a U.S.-based company, is capable to supply HPQ in these regions due to strategic location of its offices in the U.S. and Europe and strong team of sales and marketing in Asia.
This, in turn, would fuel the use of high purity quartz in the semiconductor industry in the next few years.
Several countries across the globe are undertaking solar projects so as to save on non-renewable sources of energy.
Solar power involves the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells.
