FCC

RHEWUM has developed a solution to process sand mobile and therefore directly on site.

2020-04-23

A flourishing construction industry without sand is unthinkable. According to One Stone Consulting, around 10 to 15 billion tons of building sands are required worldwide each year (1). In addition, we need industrial sands, for example for fracking or the glass industry. This corresponds to a per capita sand consumption of about two to eight tons per year, so that a total of 40 to 50 billion tons of sand and gravel must be extracted. This makes sand the second most traded raw material after water (2)! Since the demand for sand is growing faster than suitable sand resources can be found, sand is instead produced from gravel or transported over long distances. This is not environmentally reasonable. RHEWUM has developed a solution to process sand mobile and therefore directly on site.

The raw material

Quartzite sand is mainly used in the construction industry. It consists of silicon dioxide (SiO2). The great hardness of the material (7? according to Mohs) is an advantage. The usual grain sizes in the building industry for coarse sand are 0.63 to 2.0 mm, for medium sand 0.2 to 0.63 mm and for fine sand 0.063 to 0.2 mm. Whereby the finest fraction (below 63 ?m) must be removed to avoid silicosis (pneumoconiosis), as these fine particles settle in the lung tissue and can lead to chronic inflammation.

The occurrence

In simple terms, sand is produced by the weathering of minerals. However, all rocks weather differently. A sand-lime brick weathers much faster than a hard quartz rock and subsequently rises again in superficial sediment. The proportion of sand here lies at around 10 percent, while the proportion of gravel in these sediments amounts to 20 percent (1). Unfortunately, the global demand cannot be covered by the sand deserts of our earth, as so often hoped for. It is too fine-grained and round, so it cannot be used as an aggregate for concrete. Usable sand is mainly found in rivers and on the coasts of emerging countries, where it is often extracted without regulation. For this reason, countries such as Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia have generally banned the export of sand.

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