How does sand transform into transparent glass?
In: Chemistry
The same way that sugar does. Sand is itself transparent, if you look really closely at the grains. The reason it doesn’t look clear when you look at a pile of it is because of the pile. Just like a glass lens bends light, so does a grain of sand. A trillion grains of sand, salt, sugar, glass, ruby, or diamond will not look very transparent because they’re bending light off every which way. There is no organization to it, since every grain is doing its own thing, so the whole thing doesn’t look very transparent.
A nice, pure sand will appear white. Impurities can change this, and you would not want these impurities in glass.
Glass can actually be made from a variety of materials, and its defining characteristics aren’t actually its transparency but rather its molecular structure and properties.
What we generally call glass is mainly made from silica which is mostly found in sand, but what we call sand is actually a bunch of stuff and there are many different kinds of sand, but if you’re looking for silica, it’s in sand, because what we call sand is mostly silica.
Basically once you remove all the other random shit and keep those you want you can make clear and transparent glass. If it has impurities it’s not transparent.
Its very similar to why ice is usually clear, but snow is solid white.
Each grain of sand that can be used for glass is clear enough, but all those countless tiny surfaces at different angles bounce some light. As a result light that tries to pass through the sand quickly scatters in all directions, so nothing gets through.
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