Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies methods for the chemical analysis of metal impurities present in silicon dioxide powders used as a raw material for fine ceramics.

It stipulates the methods for the determination of metal impurities in silicon dioxides powders. Silicon dioxide powders are decomposed by acid decomposition. The aluminium, calcium, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, nickel, potassium, sodium, titanium, zinc, and zirconium contents in the test solution are determined by an inductively coupled plasmaoptical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES).

Purpose

Silicon dioxide is the most abundant ceramic material on the earth. Due to its characteristic properties, such as excellent transparency, electrical insulation and high chemical stability, silicon dioxide is widely used in a variety of industrial applications – semiconductors, display, optics and photovoltaic systems. Driven by large number of emerging applications of silicon dioxide, it has been reported that the market is expected to register the annual growth rate of around 6 %, during the forecast period of 2017-2024. The application and the price of silicon dioxide materials is decided by their purities and impurities. Though the purity of silicon dioxide is critical, there is no international standard for the chemical analysis of silicon dioxide powders but some standards of silica refractories. In this proposal, we suggest the test methods for chemical analysis of metal impurities in silicon dioxide powders using inductively coupled plasma-otical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES).