Industrial Interest in The Dune Fields
The several million tons of sand in the Salamayuca dunes can be considered as an enormous potential of silica sand since they are 90 to 95 pure silica (SiO2). Silica sand is widely used in what is called "the transforamation industry", for the making of glass, silicates, paints, glass-ceramics and ceramics. The sand of the Salamayuca dunes has attracted attention from the ceramic/glass industry but the desert sand contains sufficient impurities to pose problems with its use in industry, and a process to increase uniform purity to 97.5% SiO2 would have to be developed. Because the sands start with such a high percentage of silica, such a process is deemed feasible.
Read more about this topic: Samalayuca Dunes
Famous quotes containing the words industrial, interest and/or fields:
“Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“I should consider it a greater success to interest one wise and earnest soul, than a million unwise and frivolous.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning, between fields of lilies still shut in sleep; and when, at length, the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the sun’s rays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)