With a wide portfolio of mineral resources and production facilities worldwide, Imerys is able to supply quality products to specific non-ceramic industries.
Quartz for Electrometallurgy
Imerys supplies the leading European silicon smelters with high purity products from its quartz operations in Lot and Dordogne production units in the South West of France.
The specific chemical characterisitic of this quartz ore are high silica content (>99.8%) with low iron and titanium content. The quality and the consistancy are ensured by our manual and optical sorting operations together with our mining expertise. Thanks to these, our customers are able to produce a high quality silicon under good safety and operational conditions,.
After mining and on site pre-screening, the raw material is transported to the plant for washing and sorting. The purified quartz is then loaded onto trains by automatic conveyors to be delivered to our customer's processing plants.
As the need for even higher quality products is emerging (high purity silicon is the foundation of photovaltic cells technology), our dedicated development teams are constantly looking at new deposits to offer an enduring supply of quality raw materials for now and the future.
Granulates, decorative and technical quartz
A third site in the center of France (Quartz de Pierre Blanche) has enabled us to become a leading player in decorative quartz. Our white crushed quartz, which comes in various particles sizes, is used to make urban furniture and facing slabs; when worked into a resin it is also used in landscaping and various other consumer products.
The other two sites produce quartz with a distinctive round shape. We are able to offer pure silica for technical applications, pebbles for decorative use and granulates for construction and public works.
With the increasing use of decorative quartz in urban environments, particularly for precast concrete, Imerys supports its customers in their development and provide solutions that meet construction market demands.
