Zirconium sand features and washing equipment

October.25,2022

The basic component of zirconium sand is zirconium silicate (ZrSiO4), which has a variety of properties suitable for casting raw sand, such as:

(1) The surface is smooth, there are few cracks and pits, so the amount of binder consumed is very small.

(2) Among all kinds of natural casting sand, its thermal expansion rate is the smallest, and the thermal stability at high temperature is excellent.

(3) Not wetted by molten metal.

(4) Good thermochemical stability, basically not eroded by metal oxides at the pouring temperature of general casting alloys.

(5) The amount of acid required is very low, suitable for using acid-hardened resin as a binder.

(6) High thermal conductivity.

The use of zirconia sand in casting production was first seen in the 40s of the 20th century. At that time, dense castings were made by using its high thermal conductivity as a molding material for aluminum alloy castings for aircraft. In the early days, there were also foundries in China that used zirconium sand as the base sand of clay wet molding sand, and produced small and high-quality steel castings on the molding production line.

However, the world’s reserves of zircon sand are not much, mainly produced in Australia and South Africa, and in recent years, the demand for ceramics, refractories and sunscreens has increased significantly, and its price has soared so fast that it is eye-popping, thus restricting its application in casting production.

Zirconium sand washing equipment