Material
High-purity quartz sand
Also known as HPQ
Processed quartz sand of the class the sources define as more than 99.99 per cent SiO2, free of visible inclusions and low in lattice-bound aluminium, titanium and iron. A refined mineral product whose usefulness is decided not by its headline purity but by which impurities remain and at what level.
Classification
- material class
- REFINED_MATERIAL
- physical form
- SOLID
- primary commodity entity id
- entity:silica-commodity
- formula
- SiO2
How this record is known
- 2
- Settled consensus
- Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.
2 of 2 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.
What Lithoen records
Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.
EstablishedAluminium: lattice substitution (Al3+ substitutes Si4+), plus mica, clay minerals and aluminosilicate minerals. Germanium and boron likewise grouped under lattice substitution. Impurities are categorised as lattice substitution or charge compensating.
Reported for this deposit
Aluminium, the impurity the sources name as most damaging to high-purity quartz, occurs by lattice substitution — aluminium ions taking the place of silicon in the quartz crystal — as well as in mica, clay and aluminosilicate minerals. An impurity inside the lattice is not something a separation step can lift out.
- assertion basis: SOURCE_REPORTED
Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence · one source
Evidence: Long 2024 · Peer-reviewed
EstablishedIOTA-Std against IOTA-8, milligrams per kilogram: Al 14 against 8.0; Fe 0.3 against below 0.05; K 0.7 against below 0.05; Na 1 against below 0.05; Ti 1.2 against 1.3. IOTA-8 is stated to exceed 99.999 per cent SiO2 with total metallic impurities below 10 mg/kg.
Reported for this deposit
Two grades of the same producer's high-purity quartz sand differ several-fold in the impurities that matter and are NOT ordered by a single purity figure: against IOTA Standard, IOTA-8 has roughly half the aluminium, at least sixfold less iron and at least fourteenfold less potassium — and MORE titanium, at 1.3 milligrams per kilogram against 1.2. A headline purity cannot express that, which is why an impurity profile is a different fact from a purity.
- assertion basis: SOURCE_REPORTED
Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence · one source
Evidence: Long 2024 · Peer-reviewed
Record last updated 2026-09-11. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.