Quartz sand deposits and their suitability for usage in different industrial branches: The evaluation of Bartin - Çakraz deposits in Northwestern Turkey

Qakraz district of Bartin province in northwestern Turkey contains wide deposits of quartz sand. Regional geology consist of Lias aged carbonated claystones of Himmetpaşa formation, Barremian aged limestone, dolomitic limestones of Zonguldak formation and Aptian aged sandstone - carbonated sandstones of Kilimli formation. Çakraz district quartz sand deposits are hosted in Himmetpaşa formation and usually occur as wide lenses in the host rocks. In this study major and minor element chemical analysis, petrographical analysis and sieve analysis were carried out in order to determine the geochemical and physical properties of the Çakraz district quartz sands to assess their suitability to the industrial requirements and standards. Eight hand specimens were analyzed for major and minor element analysis with ICP-ES and ICP- MS methods. SiO₂ content of the samples are between %97.50 to %98.77, Al₂O₃ between %0.22-0.70, Fe₂O₃ between %0.10-0.21 and CaO between %0.01 to %0.36. The sieve analysis results show that a great majority of the quartz sand particles are between 0.106 to 0.5 mm. in size. However 0.3 to 0.5 mm. sized particles are observed to be more abundant. After assessing these results in terms suitability to the industrial requirements, it was determined that the studied quartz sands are unsuitable for the glass industry due to high content of Fe2O3 and TiO2 although observed particle sizes satisfy the industry standards. On the contrary, the quartz sands of the region bear properties that are perfectly suitable for the casting industry in terms of both chemical content and particle size range. The quartz sand deposits are also suitable for the refractory industry in the places of the study area. The CaO content is found to be suitable for refractory usage in some localizations in the area.