How to process silica sand?

How to process silica sand?

Release time：16 May 2018

What is Silica sand ?


Silica sand material Mainly Distribution in the world :


Silica Sand Regular Specifications :

The regular specifications of silica sand are: 1-2mm, 2-4mm, 4-8mm, 8-16mm, 16-32mm, 10-20 mesh, 20-40 mesh, 40-80mesh, 100-120 mesh, 200 mesh, 325 mesh, SiO2 > 99-99.5% Fe2O3 less than 0.02-0.015%.

The silica sand raw material is usually will contain sticky clay, Kaolin clay, ilmenite, Hematite, Iron, and other magnetic minerals. The silica sand color in raw material maybe white, yellow, brown,ect.

Application Area of Silica Sand:

Silicon sand is an important industrial mineral raw material, widely used in glass, casting, ceramics and refractory materials, metallurgy, construction, machinery, electronics, chemical, plastic, abrasive, rubber, aerospace and other industries. Another important use of silica sand is the filter and filter used for water treatment.

1.) Glass: flat glass, float glass, glass products (glass jars, glass bottles, glass tubes, etc.), optical glass, glass fiber, glass instrument, conductive glass, glass cloth and special glass for anti ray

2.) Ceramics and refractories: porcelain materials and glazes, high silica bricks, ordinary silica bricks and silicon carbide raw materials.

3.) Metallurgy: raw materials or additives and fluxes of silicon metal, ferrosilicon alloy and silicon aluminum alloy.

  1. ) onstruction: concrete, cementitious material, road building material, artificial marble, cement physical property test material (namely cement standard sand)
  • Chemical: silicon compound and water glass and other raw materials, sulphuric acid tower filling, amorphous silica powder
  • Machinery: the main raw materials for casting sand, abrasive materials (sandblasting, hard abrasive paper, sandpaper, abrasive cloth, etc.)

7).Electronics: high purity metal silicon, optical fiber for communication, etc.

8)Rubber and plastics: fillers (increase wear resistance)

  • aint: filler (improve the acid resistance of coatings).
  • Aeronautics and Astronautics: its internal molecular chain structure, crystal shape and lattice change law, with high temperature resistance, low thermal expansion coefficient, corrosion resistance, high insulation, piezoelectric effect, resonance effect and its unique optical properties.

Silica sand as below pictures:


How to wash and separate out Silica sand?

Usually the silica sand raw material is with sticky clay, kaolin clay, impurity minerals, magnetic minerals , such as ilmenite, hematite, iron, and others. So firstly need to wash clean the clay and kaolin clay, remove the waste sand and magnetic minerals, and finally sieve out requested size silica sand , dry it and packing it.


JXSC mine machinery Company in China has more than 30 years professional experience at silica sand processing plant, design full set silica sand process flowchart , provide complete set silica sand washing plant, can send engineer to mine site for equipment installation and commissioning guidance. Have already built many silica sand separation plant in Algeria, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Egypt, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines,ect.

Below are the flowchart description that JXSC Engineer recommend for silica sand processing plant:

How to process silica sand4

How to process silica sand5How to Process Silica Sand:

Feeding->washing->primary sieving->gravity separation to remove heavy minerals -> refining process to remove magnetic minerals-> Sieving out requested size silica sand->drying->packing 

Silica sand Feeding: 

can be vibration feeding machine, feeding hopper, electrimagnetic vibration feeder, belt feeder, wheel loader or excavator feed directly. Depends on process capacity and raw material conditions to choose which feeding machine.

Silica sand Washing clean clay:

 it is for washing clean the clay, kaolin clay and mud in raw material, most popular silica sand washing machine are trommel scrubber, log washer, spiral washer, attrition scrubber,ect. The silica sand washing attrition scrubber and spiral classifier washing machine are especially good washing effect for small size silica sand -3 mm. If bigger size, can consider to use trommel scrubber and log washer to wash silica sand.

Silica sand primary Sieving to remove bigger waste sand: 

after washing clean the caly, then need to sieve out some bigger waste sand ,the under screen sand will go to next gravity separation machine. This sieving process can use normal vibration screen or silica sand high frequency vibration screen.

Silica sand gravity separation to remove heavy minerals:

it is for primary silica sand gravity separation to remove heavy minerals, such as ilmenite, hematite, iron,ect, the most common use silica sand separation machine is shaking table, spiral chute separator. It depends on the process capacity to choose which gravity separation machine.

If big capacity plant, usually use spiral chute separator with bigger capacity. If small capacity plant, usualy use shaking table to separate out silica sand.

Silica sand refining process remove magnetic minerals:

after silica sand gravity seapration, there will still some percentage magnetic minerals in silica sand, so need to remove it by magnetic separator, different magnetic minerals, will use different gauss magnetic separator, for removing iron, need 1000 gauss , for removing ilmenite and hematite , need 8000-9000 gauss. Different useage of silica sand , will request different percentage of magnetic minerals remaining in final silica sand product.

Sieving out requested size silica sand:  

After removing magnetic minerals, will need to sieve out requested size silica sand, usually use the high frequency vibration screen, with PU screen, screen mesh size can be customized.


After sieving out final silica sand, then drying the sand by drying mahcine.


After drying the sand, use packing machine to pack final silica sand product ,then can sale. The silica sand packing machine is ton bag packing machine, can be 0.5 T, 1 T, 2 T, or 3 T per bag as requested.