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.
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