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All About Engineered Quartz Stone, You Should Know Well!

Take you all aspects of understanding artificial quartz stones. It is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of all aspects related to artificial quartz stone. This includes its composition, physical characteristics, manufacturing process, applications, and maintenance requirements.

• What is Artificial Stone?

Artificial stone is a polymer or inorganic cementitious material or a mixture of the two as a bonding material, natural stone crushed (powder) material, or natural quartz (sand, powder) as the primary raw material, adding pigments or other auxiliaries after mixing and blending, coagulation, and curing composite materials. Artificial stone is currently one of the most essential decorative materials, with abundant raw materials, a simple preparation process, excellent performance, and other characteristics to compensate for the natural stone resources and their shortcomings.

Using unsaturated polyester resin and inorganic filler, artificial stone production is domestically customarily divided into five categories: granite, quartzite, solid surface materials, translucent stone, jade, etc., and its resin dosage and molding methods are different.

• What is an artificial quartz stone?

Among them, artificial quartz stone is quartz sand powder as the primary aggregate, resin, pigment, and other auxiliary materials as the primary bonding material; mixing; vacuum pressurized vibration molding, curing, and processing; and other processes made of new stone. It is a non-radioactive pollution that does not contain heavy metals, is safe and non-toxic, and can be in direct contact with food for environmental protection, green new building materials, and decorative materials.

• Quartz stone’s excellent performance

1. Strong toughness, anti-breakage, and scratch resistance: quartz stone countertops usually have quartz sand and resin. The quartz sand provides the hardness, and the wax acts as a bond and provides toughness. Because of the high hardness of quartz stone density, its appearance can reach Mohs hardness level 6, close to the hardness of diamonds, much higher than the use of kitchen knives, spatulas, and other sharp objects. So, even if you use complex objects to scrape the countertop, it is challenging to be scratched and leave scratches. The Engineered Quartz Countertop has the hardness and wear resistance of inorganic materials and a combination of organic materials, such as toughness, ease of processing, and product texture through the body, comparable to natural stone in product performance. It is a new home-building material with excellent performance.
2. Fire, high temperature: quartz stone’s primary raw materials are quartz sand particles, and quartz stone has a melting point of more than 1300 degrees; after adding a small amount of composite materials, the surface still has a relatively high resistance to burns. Quartz stone countertops are not only wholly fire-retardant; there will be no depression, spot, or other phenomena, and excellent fire performance so that the quartz stone countertops maintain a long-lasting clean. The characteristics of artificial stone and other countertops cannot be compared to those of high temperature.
3. Beautiful and decorative: quartz stone contains more than 90% quartz sand combined with the classic color scheme, presenting more texture than natural stone and a more aesthetic appearance. In addition, quartz stone has a three-dimensional body of beauty, and the same table can be applied in many fields. In indoor, long-term daily use, quartz stone will not be oxidized by aging, corrosion, heat contact, or other reasons leading to color metamorphosis.
4. Dense structure, anti-leakage, acid, and alkali resistance: quartz Kitchen Countertop fusion of complex surface treatment technology and polishing process; the product structure is exceptionally tight, dense, and non-porous; water absorption rate of almost zero; stain resistance; not easy to penetrate the stains; In general, kitchen oil, sauce, tea, juice, coffee, acid, alkali, and other substances are not easy to penetrate.
5. Non-toxic and non-radiation: The quartz stone surface has a smooth, dense, and non-porous material structure that gives the bacteria no place to hide, can be in direct contact with food, and is non-toxic and non-radiation.

• Quartz stone raw materials

1. Resin: The resin used in artificial quartz stone is mainly unsaturated polyester resin and polymethyl methacrylate resin. Due to the latter’s high cost, domestic quartz stone manufacturers currently use mostly unsaturated polyester resin. In artificial quartz stone, resin is the primary material, which has the role of bonding and providing toughness.
2. The quality of quartz stone is directly related to the amount of resin content. Within the standard range, the higher the content of quartz in quartz stone and the lower the amount of resin, the better the quality, the closer it is to natural, and the less likely it is to be deformed. Artificial quartz stone resin content is high (more than 10%). It quickly produces scratches in the process of use, affecting the aesthetic and, at the same time, reducing its resistance to pollution. In contrast, aging resistance is poor, resulting in reduced strength and even deformation and fracture.
3. Filler: quartz stone filler is the main component of silica; the others are quartz sand, quartz powder, casting sand, crushed glass, shells, feldspar, etc. The quality of quartz sand directly impacts the quality of artificial quartz stone panels. Low quartz content in quartz stone will lead to poor product hardness and produce scratches, affecting the aesthetics and, at the same time, reducing its resistance to pollution. In contrast, the aging resistance could be better, and long-term use of reduced strength, deformation, and fracture.
4. Pigment: The role of stain in quartz stone is to mix a variety of colors to make the color colorful.

Curing agent: The curing agent is essential for producing quartz stone; the curing agent can play an important role in the quartz stone shaping and intensive molding process.

Other additives: resin belongs to polymer polymerization materials; adding some additives can improve its process, improve production efficiency, enhance the performance of quartz stone, and prolong its service life.

1. Quartz stone production process

2. Raw material collection: purchasing glass, quartz, resin, and other natural and auxiliary materials

   
3. Selection of raw materials: fans, iron removal equipment, manual quote to remove impurities in the granular raw materials, iron filings, and so on.
4. Batching: After the selection, the materials are transported into the mixing system. The materials are thoroughly mixed in the gravityless mixer to eliminate the problems of color difference and unevenness of the granules. After mixing, it will be transported to the corresponding batching bin, and the batching system will automatically batch the materials during production.
5. Mixing: The unsaturated polyester resin, pigment, additives, and granular powder are thoroughly mixed.
6. Fabrication: The mixed material is conveyed through the conveyor belt and enters the fabric truck, evenly distributing the material into the fabric mold frame.
7. Vacuum high-frequency vibration pressing: after the fabric is finished, it is transferred to the press equipment, and vibration packing is carried out under the vacuum condition of -0.1 MPa.
8. Heating, curing, and shaping: after pressing, the blank is heated and shaped at 85–110 °C in the curing oven. 
9. Thickening and polishing: After curing, the blank is cooled down for 24 hours, and then it enters the thickening equipment for thickening.
10. Polishing: After thickness setting, the blank is polished by a 20-head polishing machine and then polished to a glossy finish. Depending on the requirements, polishing is carried out until the gloss level reaches 40–70°.
11. Inspection: inspection of the appearance and quality of the plate.
12. Cutting: Cut the products to the required size using longitudinal and transverse cutting and bridge-cutting machine equipment.
13. Packing into the warehouse: the cut products are air-dried and loaded into the warehouse for storage.

• How do you choose quality quartz stone countertops?

  

• Look: look at whether the color will not be cloudy or whether it is translucent. In addition, the surface will not have a plastic gel feel; the plate is fine without air holes.
• Touch: touch is to feel whether the surface is silk, has no astringency and whether it will be uneven.
• Scratch: scratch the surface of the plate with your fingernail; no apparent scratches.
• Try with soy sauce to test the permeability of the kitchen countertops. It can also be used to test the countertops with vinegar; there is no calcium carbonate. You can also use a lighter to burn the countertops, so they will not be on fire if these do not occur on behalf of the material.
• Check: check whether the product has ISO quality system certification, environmental certification, quality inspection reports, a product warranty card, and related anti-counterfeiting signs.

• Application of quartz stone

Presently, the domestic application of artificial quartz stone products is mainly in the direction of kitchen countertops, bathroom countertops, bars, coffee tables, etc. In contrast, the application of foreign quartz stone is extensive. In addition to the above application environment, it has been extended to the ground and wall, providing a complete alternative to natural quartz stone, marble, granite, high-grade ceramics, wood, metal, and other decorative materials.