From sand to sculpture
Sand: Understanding the importance of the multi-talented material sand requires some reflection on the question of what our lives would be like if sand disappeared from them. Hardly anything would work in an average household. Sand is contained in countertops, kitchen fronts, in toothpaste, shower gel, in plastics, color pigments, and even in shredded cheese as an anticaking agent. Sand is indispensable – particularly in the construction sector. In just three years, from 2011 to 2013, China is supposed to have used as much sand in construction projects as the United States in 100 years, from 1900 to 2000. On a global scale, humans use around 50 billion metric tons (55 billion short tons) of sand per year, typically in the form of concrete and cement. The valuable grainy raw material has a very long multi-faceted history. As far back as around 15 BC, Emperor Drusus built the Roman road Via Claudia Augusta on sand. Around 2,000 years ago, the Romans developed “opus caementitium” concrete – an artificial stone that thanks to mixing in volcanic ash was enormously robust. They used it to erect buildings by hand without the help of high-tech machines. Some of them still exist today. The most important types of sand include quartz sands. As early as in the 7th century, the Chinese knew how to make white porcelain from quartz, kaolin, and feldspar using specialty mills and casting molds. The history of glass is even older. Long before the birth of Christ, people were able to produce glass from quartz by applying enormous heat. Glass contains around 70 percent quartz sand. The invention of the glassmaker’s pipe in Syria in 200 BC marked a technical revolution. It enabled the creation of sophisticated shapes. Industrially produced glass made its way into nearly all areas of daily life. Computers, smartphones, and TV sets would be inconceivable without sand as well. What’s more, the silicon contained in quartz sands can convert alternating electric current into direct current. Today’s microelectronics would hardly be thinkable without that property. But quartz has even more abilities. It’s literally a seamless material. Once compacted, it provides an ideal “frame” for shaping cast-iron workpieces. This manufacturing technique is still used today particularly for large specialty workpieces. Specialty filtering systems using quartz sands for purifying drinking water can be found everywhere today. There’s no need for humanity to worry about a lack of eco-friendly further developments. In Canada, architects have used recycled glass instead of carbon-intensive cement as a binding agent for the construction of two concrete bridges which reduced the emission of greenhouse gases by 40 metric tons (44 short tons).