Quartz is one of the most common minerals on Earth. It’s made up of one part silicon and two parts oxygen. Even though it’s sometimes modified by humans, quartz is still about 90% natural. You can find it in many forms and in different places in nature, like beaches.
Quartz, among the other natural stones, offers you all the beauty and elegance. The artificial engineering process makes it harder, more durable, and low-maintenance. Hence, it is immensely popular among the various interior designers and homeowners.
Quartz Stone Manufacturing Process
While we take a look at the quartz stone manufacturing process, we will also go through the raw quartz manufacturing process and understand how raw quartz is manufactured before it is supplied to the quartz stone manufacturing industries.
Raw Quartz Manufacturing
Quartz is a super useful and important material, which is why it’s one of the top products in business-to-business (B2B) markets. It gets extracted and processed both for local use and for export. The process involves taking the quartz from the ground and then turning it into a finished product.
1) Extraction Of Quartz
Quartz can be extracted through open-pit mining. There are some rare instances that miners have to use explosives when it is necessary for them to expose the deep seam of the mineral. But it is done rarely because regardless of its hardness, it can be easily damaged when exposed to a sudden temperature change.
It’s common in mining operations to use of backhoes and bulldozers to effectively get rid of both the clay and soil surrounding the mineral. After that, the crystal veins of quartz will be exposed in the rock. Once exposed to the surface, a team will use picks, chisels, and other small hand tools to extract the quartz directly from the quarry.
2) Processing Of Quartz
After quartz is mined, it needs a thorough cleaning to remove any chemical impurities and physical imperfections. Once it’s cleaned up, a team will screen the quartz to sort it out. After screening, the quartz is crushed into different sizes, depending on what it will be used for.
Using a crusher, quartz will undergo the crushing process, while a vibrating screen will be used to separate it. Next is to utilize a ball mill to ground the quartz. Lastly, the mineral will be classified into varying sizes by the qualified classifier. As for the quartz powder, a grinder mill is used for crushing the pure, lumpy quartz to produce a fine powder.
3) Supplying Of Quartz
After processing, quartz is shipped in big containers when transported by sea. On land, it’s moved using large trucks or trains. If the quartz is a type of semi-precious gemstone, extra care is needed to keep it from getting damaged.
At Universal Quartz, the best quality quartz manufacturer in India, we supply quartz sand, quartz granules and other B2B quartz products which are further manufactured into useful industrial and consumer products. We are also one of the largest quartz suppliers in India. We supply quartz products to different wholesale distributors and industries across India and export them throughout the globe.
Quartz Stone Manufacturing
1) Raw Material
When making engineered quartz stone, the process begins with choosing the right quartz materials. This could be quartz sand or quartz granules. After selecting the raw quartz, the manufacturing process is completed at a quartz industry, like Universal Quartz.
2) Blending
The selected raw quartz is crushed and then, blended under a ratio of 93% quartz aggregates to 7% resin binder along with other additives.
3) Slab Pressing
Furthermore, the mixture will be compacted to form the slabs using the vacuum and vibration method for about 100 seconds at 100 tons pressure. Using this kind of process, it can minimize porosity while decreasing water absorption.
4) Heating
After that, the slabs will undergo the curing process using a kiln at 85 degrees for about half an hour. That is to attain all the necessary properties for stain and impact resistance. To accelerate the curing process, steam or oven can be used. Once this process is completed, the produced slabs will undergo gauging, calibrating, polishing, and then prep up for the packing process.
5) Cooling
After curing, the slabs are held upright with the help of a clamp and cooled for 24-36 hours.
6) Trimming
The edges are trimmed and leveled.
7) Quality Verification
With the help of the engineered quartz manufacturing process, there will be consistency and uniformity in the shade and dimension. As a result, it saves time during the construction process. Although the engineered version resembles the natural stone’s patterns, it offers a more consistent color, pattern, and texture, and uniform appearance. Besides, since they are man-made, they can be easily fabricated in large sizes, which can result in better aesthetics along with fewer joints.
