what do you use to clean quartz crystals

Cleaning Quartz
The same methods described below can also be used to clean other hard durable minerals like beryl, spinel, tourmaline, chrysoberyl etc.

Here are some pictures of quartz crystal specimens, fresh from the mine in Arkansas that demand to exist cleaned. These are typical examples of "fe stained" quartz specimens that are constitute in many parts of the world.

The offending "iron staining" on the above specimens are fine grained iron minerals that are typically associated with quartz crystals when they are dug from the footing. Quartz crystals are pretty tough customers and you can clean them quite aggressively, both by mechanical and chemical means. By that I mean you can go afterward about of them with a stiff brush and scouring powder. In improver you can put them in about any stiff acid without etching them or dulling the shiny natural luster that many quartz crystals have on their surfaces (an exception even so is hydrofluoric which is discussed below). You can even use steel or aluminum bristle brushes if yous want since quartz is harder than these metals. You may have some of the metal rub off on the quartz crystals, still, which you may have to clean off.

Are there whatever exceptions to this? Yes, if the quartz crystals are loosely joined together, like the cluster of slightly intergrown quartz crystals pictured beneath from Herkimer, New York. Rough cleaning of crystals of quartz crystal specimens like this, may cause the crystals to separate from each other where they are attached to one another.

If the quartz crystals are thin and prismatic similar these and intergrown like the two specimens below, from the Jeffrey Quarry, Jeffrey, Pulaski Co., Arkansas, USA or from Huaron, Peru, rough treatment may crusade some to intermission off.

If the quartz is of the "h2o quartz" (fenster/jacaree/elestial) variety, the crystals may contain fluid inclusions with bubbles. Subjecting them thermal stress like freezing temperatures or tossing them in hot water may cause cracking.

Quartz crystals from some localities seem to be more sensitive to thermal daze than those from others. The quartz from Herkimer, New York appear to be some of these. When removed from the basis, some collectors accept learned to quickly wrap them upward, mud and all, and put them in an ice chest to let them get used to life exterior of the pocket they formed in. Then, in a twenty-four hour period or so, they are carefully cleaned with water that is at the aforementioned temperature as the quartz. Non doing this risks shattering the crystals or creating internal cracks in some of the oft beautifully clear "herks". Crystals from some Herkimer county localities seem to be more sensitive to thermal shock than others. These are the exceptions. Nigh quartz crystals are tolerant of considerable temperature modify. Yet this is something to think virtually when cleaning your quartz crystals. If you clean a lot of quartz from a particular locality, you will speedily learn what they can tolerate and what they can not. Finally, your cleaning options may be limited if your quartz specimens are associated with frail associated minerals. These delicate minerals may be damaged past some of the chemicals that might otherwise be used to clean them. A common instance would be quartz associated with calcite. If you put the specimen in acid, the calcite would dissolve in the acrid while liberating lots of bubbles of carbon dioxide. Other than these exceptions, you should feel free to have at them.

Keep in mind that in most cases the "dirt" you want to clean off of your quartz crystal(s) is also a mineral(due south). Thus when you "clean" the specimens you are actually removing a mineral(southward) from the specimen that nature put in that location. A few collectors and mineralogists feel that by removing this "dirt" you are destroying data that would better be preserved for futurity generations. Historically, this dirt is not often kept intact considering of the profit to exist made by proper cleaning. If yous are worried about this you tin leave some of the original "dirt" on the specimen in a place where it will non detract from its "curb appeal". Fortunately, quartz is one of the most abundant minerals on earth, and for every specimen y'all "destroy" past cleaning, in that location are plenty more left to written report.

For several years during the 1980s, I and some associates ran a piffling quartz mine in Minas Gerais state in Brazil in the hills merely outside of the footling town of Joacuam Felicio. This mine was not in the peachy granitic region of the state which also produces many fine quartz crystals, only rather in the part that held role of the vast Itacolomi sandstone germination. It was i of many hundreds of small mines that had been started during the second world state of war to provide quartz for the war effort. It produced more often than not unmarried quartz crystals measuring less than half-dozen inched long, but many independent beautiful green phantoms.

Nearly of the crystals were not very shiny and had some of impairment. Nosotros found that the way to market them successfully was to accept the surfaces basis down past using a fast rotating sanding belt and then polishing using a felt polishing cycle and a tin can oxide polishing powder. They sold well. I had a number of collectors ask me to bring in some of the natural unpolished crystals, which I did, only even when I priced them less than polished crystals of comparable quality, they they did non sell well. Finally, I but told our cutting and polishing shop to polish them all, though I did salve a few in their natural state. So I estimate the lesson I learned is that in reality very few people are concerned with preserving the natural "dirt" or natural etching on quartz crystals. Only, for the sake of futurity generations, you should make sure all specimens you collect are labeled with the mine name, state/province and country. Since in that location are so many unlike quartz localities and often it impossible to know the locality of a specimen by simply looking at it, y'all should really gum a label right on the specimen that specifies the locality. As well it can't hurt to preserve a few in their natural state.

Most of the time a person wanting to clean quartz crystals is trying to remove brown "atomic number 26 stains" or a white coating from the crystals. Quartz crystals from pegmatitic environments are frequently coated fine grained mica or various dirt minerals. Quartz from sedimentary environments like those from the sandstones of Arkansas, USA or those from the sandstone areas in Minas Gerais Brazil are often "fe stained". In these examples and many more, the quartz is covered or stained with other minerals that detract from the nice shiny, sparkling surface of the crystals. Those of the states with a practical aptitude hope that, lurking merely below the offending crud, are beautiful, shiny quartz crystals. In nearly cases you don't have to know exactly what those minerals are in order to clean them. Still if yous can discover what the mineral(s) is, that information tin can sometimes help you lot to know how to clean it. Often these fine grained "fe stains" or white coatings are not like shooting fish in a barrel to narrate mineralogically, and it is not worth the try to analyze them.

The cleaning method you choose will normally depend upon your finances and where you live. These will determine the tools and chemicals available to you. I am a big wholesaler of minerals in the Los Angeles, California area and have easy access to a wide range of cleaning tools and chemicals. Over the years I accept tried most of the various cleaning methods described in this article. Nosotros will consider beginning cleaning with mechanical methods before we motion on to chemicals.

1. Mechanical cleaning methods for quartz crystals
To a sure extent your cleaning method will depend upon how much quartz you accept to clean. If yous are running a quartz mine in Arkansas or excavation amethyst from the decomposed basaltic soil near Artigas, Uruguay, y'all will likely have pick-up trucks full of quartz to clean. In this example the first thing yous need to practice is to use h2o to clean them up as much as possible. If your specimens are heavily coated with mud, similar the amethyst dug from the basaltic soil near Artigas, the best fashion to start is to place the specimens on the ground(concrete or asphalt preferred) or perhaps on rectangular screens nailed to 2x4 foot wooden frames. Blast them with water using as much pressure every bit you can manage. Water from a hose is OK, but that from an electrical or gas powered pressure washer is improve. Don't use too much pressure or you will damage them by diggings them into one another or cause them to roll them around on the ground, causing them to chip and crack. I take heard of some people who don't have a pressure washer taking taking their specimens to one of the money operated car launder places and used the pressure level washers at that place to clean their specimens. If the specimens take a lot of thick mud on them, after the first wash they are left to dry out. This will usually cause the remaining mud to fissure and shrink and allows subsequent washing to remove more of the mud. This process is repeated until it is articulate that repeated washing and drying cycles will be unproductive. If you have only a few specimens to clean, merely scrub them up with a brush and lather and water or utilise i of the picayune fabric high pressure level cleaning guns described below to clean off as much clay as y'all can.

After you have removed as much of the gross dirt/mud equally you can and experience that the specimen(s)need farther cleaning, examine it closely and scratch at any remaining "dirt" with a knife blade. Run across if you can dislodge the offending textile. Utilise the point of the blade if you have to. Don't worry nearly hurting the quartz crystal since information technology is much harder than the steel of your pocketknife. Worry instead nigh the blade slipping and cut your hand. Ideally, you will want to practice this nether a binocular, reflected light microscope, but a magnifying glass or sharp eyes may serve likewise. You do this and so you lot can meet exactly what happens when y'all scratch the crystals face and if you are really making any progress in removing the offending coating. Don't exist afraid to really get later on it. If you tin can scrape any part of the surface clean at all, even if it is only in a tiny area, there is a good chance that yous volition exist able to make clean the quartz mechanically. If you tin can't scrape whatsoever of the surface clean, then information technology is likely that the surface of the quartz has been naturally etched or the offending cloth is intergrown into the surface of the crystal or has been included just beneath the surface. If the cloth y'all would similar to remove is intergrown with the surface of the crystal or included just below it yous are sunk and in that location is non much y'all can practise to improve the specimen short of grinding abroad the surface and polishing it using normal lapidary procedures. These lapidary procedures are generally labor intensive and you lot can't just "buff upwards" the crystals and brand them shine like you lot can practise with brass or copper. I know of no chemical method that makes a boring quartz crystal shiny. Well, wait! I should not say that. I take seen formerly quite unattractive quartz crystals that have been put in the big, heated stainless steel autoclaves full of concentrated alkali solution that are used to abound synthetic quartz and later on new quartz has been grown on top of these crystals and they look quite nice. Merely, that is the simply exception I know about. If y'all can't make a dent in what it is you want to remove with the signal of a knife blade there may yet still be a tiny shard of hope left, but I'll talk over that below. This will exist for the real diehards who know something about chemicals and how to use them safely.

2. Soap and Water To clean quartz specimens a first adept step is to scrub upward i or two of them them with soap and h2o. Use liquid detergent soap, if you can, rather than some other kind and warm water. This will remove any easily removable dirt and can can often give y'all an indication of how to proceed. If your detergent is the kind that has perfume or lemon olfactory property added, your specimens will take the added virtue of smelling dainty. Oft, experienced cleaners will skip this footstep and proceed to blasting their specimens with high pressure water using textile guns to see if that will remove the offending substance. The easiest way to practice that is to purchase 1 of the niggling handheld cleaning guns called fabric cleaning guns. They are commonly used in the dry out-cleaning industry for removing spots from textile. You tin purchase these for less than $75. If yous Google "spot cleaning gun" yous will discover a lot of these offered for sale. These little "buzzer guns" used to price several hundred dollars and still many dealers bought them, because they cleaned specimens so wonderfully and made the dealers so much coin. Ofttimes, knowledgeable collectors and dealers still often selection up old specimens that were not cleaned well because the dirt was down in the cracks and their former owners could not clean them well with soap and water and a scrub brush. Often 5 minutes or less working on them with one of these new niggling material guns will will increment the value of a fine old specimen by hundreds or fifty-fifty thousands of dollars. The advent and availability of these footling cleaning "guns" has been revolutionary for those who desire to make clean specimens. Its impact on cleaning minerals is like the divergence between copying a book by hand using a quill and ink compared to printing information technology with a laser printer.

These little "guns" have a curt barrel. Just below is a bulb similar plastic reservoir that the user periodically unscrews and fills with water (hot and soapy if you wish). When you pull the trigger on these handy little devices, a little leap driven piston hammers rapidly dorsum and forth and forces pocket-size but powerful jets of water out of the nozzle. It looks continuous but in reality it is intermittent. If you lot put your finger directly in front of the nozzle, the stream is often powerful enough to bulldoze h2o nether your skin, only the force of the stream rapidly diminishes with distance from the barrel because of turbulence. A yard or so from the nozzle, the stream turns into a mist. You can quickly become a experience for just how much force you are applying to the specimen by holding your hand as far away as y'all can from the nozzle and and so bringing your hand closer. Pretty presently you will experience the water stream confronting your manus and when you come close enough, it will outset to sting. It is a good idea to stop at that point. By doing this piddling exercise yous can apace tell how far abroad from the specimen you will demand to hold the gun to apply the amount of strength yous want. You will commonly agree the "gun" in i hand and the specimen in the other. With quartz, you can unremarkably blast away to your centre's content. You may demand to be careful with delicate specimens having many tiny thin needles of quartz because, if they are not firmly attached to the specimen, yous can sometimes accident them right off. You lot will find, yet, that crystals are frequently tougher than you might think. Once you proceeds a fiddling experience, yous will find you can scratch at your quartz with the indicate of a knife and know if it tin likely be cleaned with high-pressure level water.

When y'all apply these little spot cleaning guns yous should utilise something to protect your eyes. I find that the glasses I usually wear are sufficient to protect my eyes from the little bits of rock and dirt that the spot cleaning gun blasts off of dirty specimens. However if yous don't habiliment glasses, protective goggles are in club. If you lot are going to be cleaning a number of specimens you will also find that a plastic pelting coat will proceed your dress from getting wet and having a lot of tiny bits of rock and dirt blown onto them. I have sometimes used them near my kitchen sink and later found that bits of rock and dirt have been liberally scattered over the sink, counter tops, splash boards, walls and windows, and what e'er else is almost by.

Sometimes the high-pressure water volition but partially make clean the specimen and to finish it you may demand to switch to a somewhat more ambitious mechanical cleaning method, namely using an air abrasive tool. Usually however, if we gauge that the blanket is really tough to scrape off we will skip the high-pressure water and go directly to i of our air annoying units.

iii. Air Abrasive Tool Cleaning and Air Scribes.
If diggings your quartz crystals with high pressure will not remove the offending fabric, at that place is still some other mechanical means of cleaning that volition near certainly work, providing of class that you could scrape away a bit of the offending textile with a pocketknife blade as described higher up. This is by using an air abrasive tool. Some people phone call these sand blasters. These operate by directing a stream of high-pressure air that carries an annoying medium against the specimen. The annoying material acts like a scouring pulverisation to remove or abrade away what information technology is directed confronting. The trick is that you demand to utilize an abrasive medium that is less hard than the textile you are trying to clean in gild to avert damage to the specimen. With quartz I recommend you lot utilise tiny drinking glass chaplet rather than quartz or garnet sand. The glass beads volition non visually impairment the surface of a quartz providing that the air pressure is non to high and that the glass chaplet are relatively clean and do not incorporate to many sharp of cleaved drinking glass or other hard impurities. Quartz or garnet sand will usually remove the shiny surface of quartz crystals and leaving dull. If y'all practise not take access to an air abrasive tool, see if one of your local garages or metal working establishments has ane that they employ to make clean spark plugs or debur metal parts and see if yous can infringe some time on it. Merely make sure that you don't utilize anything more aggressive or harder than glass chaplet. Start out with about lx pounds of air pressure and increase if necessary. Oft yous tin can clean up small specimens of quartz (paw size) in a few minutes with this kind of equipment. Air annoying tools are commonly used with dissimilar kinds of annoying powders to make clean and prepare fossils. We have used large and small versions of this equipment for years with different kinds of abrasive media and they have paid for themselves many times over.

If yous don't accept admission to this kind of equipment, yous tin do it the old fashion way and only continue scraping away with paw tools. Used dental picks brand wonderful tools for this type of work and picayune paw electrical grinders like flexible shaft tools tin can be handy. But no matter how much time yous spend cleaning your quartz by paw, the results will rarely be as good equally you can obtain with air abrasive equipment and information technology volition take you ten to a hundred times longer.

Another mod tool that is often handy when "cleaning" quartz specimens is an air scribe. This is a fiddling miniature paw held jackhammer powered past compressed air. They look a little bit like fat pencils and can be used to help shape your specimen or to remove chunks of offending material that may be growing on your quartz crystals. If you take enough time with the air annoying tool, you tin oft remove large thick masses of cloth, but often an air scribe volition remove it in seconds rather than minutes or hours. Air scribes are besides commonly used to remove saw marks from specimens that have been trimmed to size by diamond saw blades. We have some fabricated by Chicago Pneumatic. There are different kinds, some designed to remove small amounts of matrix, and others that will remove a nifty deal more than.

4. Ultrasonic Cleaners
Before the advent of fabric guns, ultrasonic cleaners were often the cleaning device of choice to clean specimen. These cleaners come up in various sizes from those that hold a small cupful of cleaning solution, usually water with a lilliputian detergent lather in information technology, upwardly to giants y'all could about take a bath in. Usually they are made from stainless steel and are driven by transducers of piezoelectric materials like lead zirconate titanate (PZT), barium titanate, etc) but are sometimes made from magnetostrictive materials glued to the exterior walls of the tanks. They strongly vibrate the cleaning solution and this causes tiny bubbles to form (cavitation) and the collapse of these micro bubbles creates a lot of energy and cleaning activeness. In the larger, more than powerful models, the h2o will heat up as you use the device and this likewise enhances the cleaning process. The material to be cleaned is suspended in the tank. If y'all put specimens on the bottom of the tank, this will often reduce the cleaning result, sometimes dramatically, considering it reduces the amount of cavitation and therefore the cleaning efficiency of the unit. Often cleaning volition take place within a few minutes. This device, however, is usually not very good at cleaning a lot of dirt out of deep cracks or below overlapping crystals or specimens with a lot of dirt or well consolidated dirt. Also, larger units are sometimes quite noisy and some emit a high pitched squealing sound that is quite penetrating. The expert units, and those large enough to hold larger specimens can cost several hundred to several thousand dollars each. We quickly discontinued the use of these units soon afterwards we got our first fabric guns.

Chemical Cleaning
Perhaps the most mutual reason people desire to clean quartz is to remove brown "fe stains". These "iron stains" are caused mostly past 2 fe oxide minerals: hematite and goethite. They are usually a rusty chocolate-brown color but tin can manifest a range of colors from blackness to red. The term limonite is often used to proper name them collectively. There are a number of other minerals that lie in that color range and may require chemical treatments other than those discussed beneath. A lot of this offending material tin can be removed by mechanical means, oft easily with high-force per unit area h2o or past use of an air abrasive tool. Merely if the collector does not accept access to these devices he frequently hopes for some magic liquid that he can dip his specimen into that volition remove the offending cloth. I think that the success of some commercial cleaners like Tarnex (a silver cleaning solution) where the user dips tarnished silvery into the solution and, magically, the silverish becomes bright, is the root cause of this desire. For cleaning quartz, no such magic solution exists.

If you take "iron stained" quartz crystals, blasting them with loftier-pressure h2o and/or an air abrasive tool will remove a lot of the iron staining, simply most certainly some of the staining will remain down in the cracks. To completely or almost completely remove it, y'all will need to use chemicals. Before you use chemicals, I would suggest you make clean the specimen as well as you tin with the in a higher place methods. This will allow you to chemically clean your specimens more rapidly and utilise a smaller amount of chemicals to practise and so. There are three main ways to chemically remove "fe stains" from quartz. They are by the use of: 1. A Waller solution (Iron Out), 2. Oxalic acid, or 3. Muriatic acid. These three chemical methods will remove "iron stains": (hematite & goethite). I should state that at this bespeak that it is almost impossible to remove well-developed crystals of hematite and goethite with the chemicals discussed below as these chemicals are finer just in removing the fine-grained equivalents of these minerals.

These 3 chemic reagents are helpful in removing hematite (fe oxide) and goethite (fe hydroxide) specifically, so if your "iron stains" are acquired by other minerals, these three chemical methods may not work for you. If y'all know exactly what offending minerals are on your quartz specimens and have some knowledge of chemistry, then the selection of chemic cleaning agents is much more clear-cut. Ideally, a person wanting to clean some quartz specimens would analyze the offending "dirt" and discover out exactly which mineral(s) contain the "dirt" and would then pick the advisable chemical cleaning method. In practise it is usually easier to experiment with easily bachelor chemicals than become to the trouble of doing the required analysis that is oft not simple or straightforward, specially when dealing with fine-grained mixtures of various minerals. Then, since the nature of what you want to remove may be in doubt, the best communication I tin give you is to try one of these three chemical reagents on a non very valuable specimen and see if the reagent y'all choose will accomplish what you want.

5. Waller Solution (Iron Out)
If you decide to use chemicals to clean your quartz, I would definitely recommend that you lot start endeavor using a Waller solution because (one.)the chemicals in this solution are usually not difficult to obtain at to the lowest degree in the United States and more than importantly (2.)are generally less harmful than oxalic or hydrochloric acid. The Waller solution is a buffered solution of sodium dithionate. Easier than buying the chemicals and mixing them yourself, you can purchase a production from Wal-Mart chosen Super Iron Out. You buy it in plastic bottles. It is a fine white powder and y'all mix it in water according to the directions on the canteen. If you don't have a Wal-Mart near you, take someone who does purchase some and send it to you lot. You can too Google the name, Atomic number 26 Out, or employ http://www.summitbrands.com/summit/ and buy some through the mail service. Maggie Wilson, i or our regular Mindaters informs the states that in the United Kingdom Fe Out is known as Rust Out and is distributed by Aqua Cure, Telephone: 01704 516916 Website: world wide web.aquacure.co.uk. Address: Aqua Dosa, Southport, England PR90SE

Sometimes "atomic number 26 stains" work their way deeply into cracks in quartz, and you lot may have to soak your specimen for days or weeks for solutions of chemical reagents to deliquesce and remove the stains. There may be the rare example where you are unable to remove them all. A solution of sodium dithionate is not very stable because information technology reacts with atmospheric oxygen. Therefore y'all should not look it to be useful after a few days. We have switched over to this method of removing iron stains most exclusively from other chemical methods because it is quick and like shooting fish in a barrel and nosotros practice not take to neutralize information technology when done and disposal problems are minimal.

Franklin Roberts, from Austin, Texas, a knowledgeable Mindat regular provides us with the following useful information for people who wish to make their ain Iron Out solution. This may bear witness peculiarly useful for those who alive in countries where it is not possible to purchase a commercially available cleaning product like Fe Out or Super Iron Out.

Recipe for making a Waller solution:
33g sodium dithionite also known as sodium hydrosulfite
28 one thousand NaHCO3 (sodium bicarbonate)
59 grand sodium citrate
Add about 800 cubic centimeters/milliliters of water, swirl information technology effectually until the chemicals dissolve and add together enough water to brand up a liter in volume.

If you would rather make a gallon of the solution, just multiply everything by four. It works slowly at room temperature and faster if heated, just don´t go beyond threescore °C. The other compounds beside the dithionite are for buffering/complexing reasons and may foreclose precipitation of a dark green blackness coating (pyrite) on your specimen(s).

The MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) lists the active ingredients of Super Iron Out as:
Sodium Metabisulfite 20-65%
Sodium Hydrosulfite 20-65%

In this case, the prefix "meta" which is Greek for "later" refers to the fact that the metabisulfite is the species that comes afterwards sodium bisulfite (dithionite) in the chain of oxidation products going from sodium dithionite -> sodium metabisulfite -> sodium dithionate. These three compounds are also known as sodium hydrosulfite, sodium pyrosulfite and sodium bisulfate, respectively. Pretty disruptive, isn't it? The reason that super iron-out lists a wide range of percentages for the 2 ingredients isn't because they don't want you to know how much of each is in their production; it'south considering they don't know themselves. The bodily ratio is a moving target. Recollect, pure sodium dithionite is a strong reducing agent capable of snatching two atoms of oxygen from the air, water or anywhere else it can get them. As soon equally information technology snatches the kickoff oxygen, it becomes sodium metabisulfite and can only grab 1 more oxygen cantlet before becoming the fully-oxidized sodium dithionate, which is useless every bit an atomic number 26 oxide reducing agent. Withal if you have a swimming pool, it is great for lowering the pH. Products such as super iron-out usually are fabricated from industrial form chemicals that contain a lot more impurities than the reagent or loftier-purity grades. The reason for using this feedstock is that the industrial course chemicals sell for a few dollars a ton, while the pure stuff can cost a few dollars a pound. If all y'all want to practice is remove iron stains from your driveway (or your minerals) industrial or technical grade will work just fine. The feedstock used to make super atomic number 26-out probably started out equally a moderately pure sodium dithionite (hydrosulfite), just during manufacture and storage, it gradually absorbs oxygen from the air and some of it is oxidized, becoming sodium metabisulfite (pyrosulfite). Since the pyrosulfite is nonetheless a expert reducing agent, it's OK to leave it in the mix, but it's well-nigh impossible to go an accurate estimate on the proportions. Every bit time goes by, more of the dithionite volition transform into the metabisulfite and and then to the dithionate. Eventually, the entire batch will dethrone into a solution of sodium dithionate and its days as a stain remover are over. That'due south why it's so of import to go on the container sealed and away from the air as much as possible.

6. Oxalic Acid
The utilize of oxalic acid in cleaning quartz crystals.
Whatever yous do, I would advise you to employ Iron Out as described above before you use oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is a poisonous white crystalline pulverisation that is dissolved in h2o and has the power to deliquesce various fine grained iron minerals and make clean your brown quartz. Oxalic acid is the toxic substance that makes rhubarb leaves poisonous to swallow. For many years it was, and sometimes still is, sold in hardware stores for various purposes, peradventure the most common of which was to bleach wood. When you piece of work with this chemical you should vesture plastic gloves and make sure not to inhale its dust or get any in your mouth. Don't exit solutions of this material lying effectually considering they are poisonous. Before you start, go to Wikipedia on the net and read what information technology has to say nigh oxalic acid. Be sure to use technical or industrial form because information technology is much cheaper than purer grades and volition work merely fine for cleaning your crystals. It is all-time that this chemical is used in plastic or ceramic containers and not metallic ones, because the oxalic acid volition attack nigh metals. You tin get away with using an iron container like a 55 gallon pulsate, but the acid volition gradually eat it upward and generally make a mess. To give you a good thought what you are faced with, a pound to a pound and a half of oxalic acrid in a v gallon bucket of water will make a good solution for cleaning quartz. The oxalic acid volition take a few minutes to dissolve and yous must go along stirring until information technology does. If yous apply warm water information technology will dissolve faster. Oxalic acid was used for many years to clean quartz in Arkansas and is still the chemic of selection among the miners who clean large amounts of quartz. They use big steel tanks made from T1 steel that they oestrus with gas burners, almost to boiling. In this fashion they tin make clean large quantities of quartz crystals overnight though sometimes the specimens need a 2nd run through the acid to clean them completely. They purchase their oxalic acid (mostly of Chinese manufacture) in big bags past the pallet total. This has proved to exist the most economical way they accept found to clean their quartz.

Well-nigh pocket-sized time diggers who demand to remove fe stains from specimens have switched over to high-pressure water and Iron Out. When you accept finished cleaning yous specimens with an oxalic acrid solution you should not throw it downward the bleed. You tin can neutralize any remaining oxalic acid in solution with limestone chips, which volition produce a white relatively insoluble precipitate of calcium oxalate, i of the components of many kidney stones. Most people who utilise this chemical only keep the used solution around to use once again and occasionally add together more oxalic acrid as needed. Some permit it evaporate to dryness. I have used oxalic acid on many occasions to clean "iron stains" from quartz crystals and crystals of the blue diversity of microcline called amazonite. If you want yous tin oestrus it up and this will crusade your specimens to be cleaned faster. I have done this in crock pots and stole the starting time 1 from my kitchen! An alternative to applying electric or fired estrus is that you can put the oxalic acrid solution in black containers or embrace the containers in black plastic and let the sun heat the solution for you. If you utilise a plastic container yous tin heat these to near 55 degrees centigrade before they soften and start to deform. Fifty five degrees centigrade is but about as hot as you mitt tin can stand and still remain on the plastic without undue pain. Covering them with black plastic in the sun should not cause them to deform. A rule of thumb for chemical reactions is that for every 10 degree centigrade increase in temperature, the reaction rate will double. When your specimens are make clean, you should rinse them off and let them soak in clean h2o for a few hours. You may want to repeat this rinse process several times. Soaking overnight is good. Sometimes, if your quartz specimens have calcium or iron bearing minerals on them, or the water you are using has a lot of calcium or iron in it, information technology will cause calcium or iron oxalate to precipitate out of solution and coat your specimens with more crud yous will and then take to clean off with hydrochloric acid.

7. Hydrochloric Acid
Hydrochloric acid, or muriatic acrid or "pool acid" is hydrogen chloride gas, HCl, that has been dissolved in water. It is sometimes been used to clean quartz, but the methods above are better, safer and less trouble. But if you don't accept them, you tin use hydrochloric acid. Earlier y'all try and use this acid, go to Wikipedia on the net and read what it has to say about this acid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrochloric_acid You can buy this acid in hardware stores and in places like the home depot. When you handle muriatic acid, you should use rubber gloves and eye protection and should NOT use it in a confined area like your home or garage. There should exist plenty of ventilation. You should besides have a garden hose handy that you lot can use to inundation any accidentally spilled acid with lots of water. Hydrochloric acrid is a stiff acid and must be treated with respect. The concentrated hydrochloric that you get at the hardware stores is rated at virtually 32% and gives off a stiff acidic vapor. Do Not stick you nose into the mouth of the bottle and try and aroma this. Yous volition smell enough of information technology just pouring the concentrated acid out of the bottle. Belongings your breath is a good thought. Use a plastic or ceramic container to clean your quartz. Plastic is much improve considering it is not as breakable. Make sure you have a tight fitting cover for your container. Practice not use metal containers when working with this acrid. Put your quartz crystals in the container and pour in hydrochloric acid to cover them. Because of the fumes this acid gives off, brand sure you cover your container. Periodically examine your quartz crystals to see if they need to remain in the acid longer. Information technology is non advisable to heat this solution because of the fumes this volition cause. BE SURE NOT TO Apply YOUR Blank Hands AND Employ EYE PROTECTION. When information technology looks similar your quartz crystals are clean, remove them from the acrid and rinse them off with water. Then put them in another container of clean water and allow them soak for an hour or two. Soaking them overnight will not injure them and is a practiced idea. You do this to remove any acid that may accept been trapped in the cracks of the specimen. If the specimen has many cracks or is composed of a porous cloth, you lot may take to go out the specimen in the rinse h2o for several days, and soak it several times in clean water so that all the acrid has been removed from the specimen. If you practise non completely remove the acid from your specimen, it may turn yellow at a later engagement and you volition have to echo the acid treatment and the neutralization. When you are washed you can store the solution for future use or neutralize information technology. You will not want to store muriatic acid or solutions of hydrochloric acid long term in your garage or anywhere nearly metal. Plastic bottles of hydrochloric acid have a addiction of eventually cracking and leaking. The solutions tend to requite off hydrogen chloride which is difficult to contain and information technology will rust up every bit of fe anywhere near the stuff. I would recommend not storing information technology more than than a calendar week or two if you can aid it. Y'all tin can use limestone or marble fries to neutralize the acid. When yous put limestone or marble chips (calcite) in the acid, information technology will chimera and froth while carbon dioxide gas is liberated. When you lot add together more than limestone and no more bubbling happens, then the solution is neutralized and you can dispose of information technology. Dilute hydrochloric acrid is what your stomach uses to assimilate food. If you spill some acid on the floor or your apparel, just affluent the expanse or your clothing with lots of h2o and, just to be sure that the acid is gone, yous can pat downward the surface area with bicarbonate of soda. If no fizzing takes place or the fizzing stops, and then you have successfully neutralized the acid. When working with this acid and accidentally spilling some on my manus or skin I will flush the area with lots of h2o and then taste the surface area. If there is any acid left on your skin, you skin volition sense of taste sour. If information technology does you will need to launder the area some more and maybe pat it down with bicarbonate of soda to ensure neutralization. Tasting of other chemical reagents is definitely not recommend because they tin can be poisoners or fifty-fifty mortiferous. Old chemical texts used to tell you what various chemicals tasted like considering this was a very fast and like shooting fish in a barrel way to give yous an idea of what chemical y'all had. Some chemists poisoned themselves.

8. Phosphoric Acid
Yous tin too use phosphoric acid to clean out fe stains, but normally the toll of this acid is greater and it takes a chip longer. I don't recommend you use this method. Sometimes using this method will cause phosphate minerals to precipitate on your specimens, and those are often very difficult to remove.

Cleaning amethyst specimens from Thunder Bay, Canada.
Chemicals can be used to remove thin films of iron oxide minerals that are commonly nowadays on amethyst specimens from Thunder Bay. However at this locality the fe oxide minerals can be quite thick and removing them with chemicals nowadays chalenges not found on quartz from other localities. Chemicals are used to clean these specimens but it is not as like shooting fish in a barrel as cleaning specimens from other localities and a fourth dimension consuming task. The reagent mixtures can include both hydrochloric acrid and oxalic acid and heat. The formulas for the reagents used are proprietary and are arrived at but afterward considerable experimentation. Since they confer an economic advantage on the miners that use them, they usually don't want to give upwardly the cleaning methods that take fabricated them coin over the years. If someone would care to share detailed information almost cleaning these kinds of quartz specimens we would be delighted to chronicle them here.

9. Cleaning Quartz with commercially prepared reagents containing pocket-sized amounts of bifluoride.
Here is a quartz cleaning technique that was suggested and documented by Mindat member Nik Nikiforou that appears to be so applied and good we are presenting it here for all Mindat members. If you are familiar with the way specimens await, especially quartz crystals look when they are freshly collected from a pegmatite pocket you lot will want to be enlightened of this method of cleaning them, especially if you don't have whatsoever air abrasive tools at your disposal. Even if you do, yous may desire to give this method a attempt. Expect at this before and after image of this quartz and spodumene var. kunzite specimen beneath. Although the earlier picture is not very sharp and not taken from exactly the same position equally the afterward shot, it is plain to see that the cleaning of the specimen was very effective.

"Cleaning the above specimen with Whink took me about three weeks using three complete cycles, to go the piece to where I was satisfied that I had done plenty. Note that even though well-nigh of the white stuff came off the quartz crystal, information technology was however extremely "luster challenged" later cleaning. Nonetheless, I am quite pleased with the results (although I have also messed upwards a few pieces also).

Although you lot can probably prepare a like reagent using ammonium hydrogen fluorite (ammonium bifluoride, a white poisonous powder) we would recommend you employ a commercially prepared reagent called Whink. This is ane that should hands be obtainable here in the United States. There are probably others. Perchance someone volition come forward with a formula and reagent preparation process for a like reagent, but till and so, this ane volition do well. For those of you in foreign countries who may non have access to this particular brand of bifluoride reagent I would propose you to ask or pay an industrial pharmacist to whip upwardly a formula for one that you can apply and mayhap even sell to others that may want to clean their quartz specimens. But for now, lets listen to what Nik Nikiforou says:

I've had skilful results removing the silicate "white stuff" from Quartz and other minerals using an easily obtained product chosen Whink Rust Stain Remover. It is a liquid and comes in a brown plastic bottle in 6,10,16 & 32 oz sizes and can be bought in many hardware stores and or on line. Earlier I go any further you demand to know that this product contains 2% to 3% hydrofluoric acid, 1 of, if not THE well-nigh corrosive acids known, and extreme safe precautions need to be taken, including working with it ONLY OUTDOORS, wearing Prophylactic GOGGLES and chemical resistant GLOVES. You must Not allow the liquid touch your skin and you lot must not breath the fumes. I can't stress that enough.

Having said that, I use it by putting the specimen to be cleaned in a LOOSELY covered plastic container (not drinking glass equally it will eat through glass!), pouring enough of the liquid in to embrace the specimen, and keeping it out in the sun for several days or longer. If I need to process a big piece I will dilute it with plenty water to cover the specimen, although this volition prolong the amount of time needed for it to piece of work. I will cheque information technology every couple of days by gently scraping at the white stuff to encounter if it has begun to soften. At that point I will remove it from the Whink and soak it in water for a few days, irresolute the water daily, in guild to remove any remaining HF, especially if the piece is at all porous. I then gently scrape off as much of the stuff as I can with a dental tool or pocketknife, and if the piece tin physically stand up to it, hit it with the water gun. I ofttimes have to Echo this procedure two or three times (Whink handling, water soak, mechanical removal) to get the concluding of the white stuff off. A lot of work, then information technology merely pays to do this with better pieces.

CAVEATS:
1. This is not the cheapest way to apply HF - you can become more bang for your cadet by using HF obtained from chemical supply houses, which is much more than concentrated and tin be diluted to your needs. This is NOT an selection for me or for near collectors - I take seen photos of the severe tissue damage acquired by fifty-fifty brusque exposures to this acid and don't want it anywhere nigh me.

2. Whink can DULL the shine on Quartz and other silicates if used for a prolonged corporeality of fourth dimension. It volition too destroy some other minerals (don't use information technology on Apatite!), and it will slowly begin to etch Feldspars and Micas. Do some research or test on bottom pieces get-go.

3. Getting the white stuff off oftentimes does NOT amend the appearance of the specimen. In my experience, most crystal faces that are under the white stuff tend to be dull anyway; this is one of the reasons that the white stuff is then tenaciously attached to the crystal as it has lots of microsurfaces to "become a grip" on.

4. I've had a couple of cases where the specimen either lost some crystals or came apart because the "white stuff" was actually property information technology together. You lot need to closely examine your specimen to gauge if this is likely to happen.

If you program on using Whink PLEASE Have THE PROPER Safe PRECAUTIONS!
[Nik Nikiforou 2009]

In Brazil, the dealers who frequently buy and sell quartz crystals use a commercial cleaning liquid called Chispas which derives its cleaning outcome from ammonium bi fluoride and other ingredients. It is used to clean iron stains from the quartz crystals and they credit information technology with too making the quartz brighter and this may be the consequence of the weak HF solution removing very micorcrystalline quartz from the surface of the quartz crystals. But I am not sure about this. I have seen information technology used in Rio Grande do Sul among the producers of amethyst specimens to make amethyst crystals bright and clean, and have been told that if the amethyst is left too long in Chispas, specially fresh Chispas, it will deadening the amethyst crystals. I have seen specimens of amethyst where the amethyst crystals are nevertheless bright and shiny, but the underlying agate has been turned white on the outside and was told this was the consequence of fifty-fifty a short cleaning in Chispas. The fluorine in the solution attacked the chalcedony/agate very quickly compared to the crystallized amethyst. There are a number of commercial cleaning products that use bifluoride in their make-up; among these are those used on a regular basis in commercial car washes. Solutions of ammonium bifluoride should be neutralized by dumping marble or limestone fries into the solution. This will cause bubbling and a white precipitate of calcium fluoride (fluorite). To be certain the neutralizing reaction has been complete, keep calculation marble or limestone chips till no more than bubbling occurs. This may take a while.

10. Possibly cleaning and or removing quartz with Hydrofluoric Acid (HF)
I am not going to tell y'all how to apply this terrible chemic, but I volition tell you some things about it that I hope may persuade you lot non to try to utilise it. I'll also tell you well-nigh some of the things it tin and cannot do. The danger involved in using this acrid is and so great that fifty-fifty the experts here on Mindat recommend that you not apply it. Further at that place is an informal policy hither on Mindat, that the experts will not tell people on the bulletin board how to use this acrid. There are a few uses for it that cannot be replaced with less dangerous chemicals and if you really need to use HF for those purposes, then you lot demand to detect someone who knows how to handle HF. An old pharmacist or chemistry instructor volition exercise nicely; have him/her train you in how to utilize this reagent safely. To try and teach you lot about this acid by writing is not something I volition willingly practice. It would be inviting all kinds of trouble, peculiarly in this litigious society.

Hydrofluoric acid is basically the poisonous gas hydrogen fluoride, dissolved in water. In its concentrated form it is a clear liquid that cannot be stored in glass because it will deliquesce the container. I take been told, that in old chemical science labs it used to be store in bottles fabricated of paraffin. This was before the appearance of modern plastic containers. In modest quantities it at present comes in bottles made of thick plastics like polypropylene. When you open the bottle the gas will outset to escape and on a humid day y'all can see information technology. It volition ascent upwardly a little similar steam, and let me assure y'all that you really do non want to breathe the stuff. So if the day is non humid, and y'all do not have a fume hood to get rid of the fumes from the HF, you actually can't tell if you lot are going to breathe whatever of the stuff untill information technology is besides tardily. A chip probably won't kill you, but if you get a whiff of it, you will run for cover. Even the near callous of usa that take used this reagent many times treat this beast with respect. That is every bit far down that route as I am going to take yous. Let me too say that many people, even those trained in chemistry have been injured short and long term by this chemical. It can do nasty things to your body. If in spite of what I have said here, yous persist in trying to utilize HF whatever else yous practice, go to Wikipedia on the net and read nearly the acid and the bellboy dangers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid. The terrible effects caused by contact with this chemical have been known for more than 100 years. Six drops will kill a dog. http://lateralscience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/little-dog-hydrofluoric-acid.html

All that being said, if you lot desire to remove quartz or other silica containing minerals from effectually gold, silver or other minerals that are not afflicted by HF, and so there may be no other pick. In a few cases, quartz crystals may be coated with a thin druse of secondary micro quartz crystals that can peradventure be dislodged by using hydrofluoric acid. To deliquesce, or partially dissolve the quartz from around gold, silver, etc you need to use fairly concentrated HF and so the process will exist tedious, a twenty-four hours or two or more, depending upon on how much yous want to remove. Massive quartz (balderdash quartz), chalcedony and opal are attacked much more apace than the surface of regular quartz crystals. To dissolve a well-formed quartz crystal with room temperature HF can take several days, and it does not polish the quartz and make it look shiny like it will regular drinking glass, merely rather jagged and dull. I have seen some rather drab Japan law twined quartz from Washington Camp, Arizona treated in fairly concentrated HF for several hours with the surprising result that the very fine drusy quartz that was giving a matte stop to the twins was mostly removed and the surfaces left shiny. We forgot most putting them in the acid and went dorsum after about four hours to discover this surprising result. I don't recollect we would have had the nerve to leave them in that long if we had remembered sooner that they were in the HF. Some of the crystals had piffling cracks in them, and though the HF left the surface of the quartz crystals shiny, it did attack it a scrap along the edges of the cracks and it left little white trails along the cracks. My advice is that unless the quartz you are trying to clean is really exceptional, don't try and clean it with HF. Information technology only is not worth the price and the adventure to your wellness. The final quote I got from a chemical company for a gallon of HF was something over $100 dollars. If you really demand to use HF you can read diverse articles and comments on line. One of them is given here: http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM46/AM46_1498.pdf

Sodium Hydroxide
Alfredo Petrov has had success in cleaning coatings of scorodite from Japan law quartz twins from Kami, Bolivia. These were clusters of Japan police twins. He placed the quartz in a concentrated solution of sodium hydroxide. This turned the scorodite into goethite, which could and so be removed with Waller solution, oxalic acid or hydrochloric acrid. You probably don't want to go out the quartz in a strong lye (sodium hydroxide) solution for very long because quartz is slowly soluble in this reagent at room temperature. Potent solutions of sodium hydroxide are very corrosive and will basically dissolve your skin by turning the fat in your peel into soap. Wear plastic gloves when handling this material. You can neutralize lye solutions with vinegar or hydrochloric acid.

Hydrogen Peroxide
Sometimes, you can use hydrogen peroxide to remove certain blackness manganese minerals similar todorokite from quartz crystals. Some people have reported success in removing organic materials such as lichen, clay minerals ore fine grained minerals from quartz and other minerals with the use of hydrogen peroxide solutions. When the solution reacts with the manganese minerals it generates bubbles of oxygen gas. Reagent course hydrogen peroxide tin react violently with things similar asphalt. Earlier using full-bodied hydrogen peroxide exist sure you lot really know what you are doing. Nosotros have had plenty initial success in removing clay from Chinese azurite using a standard weak solution of hydrogen peroxide (hair bleach quality) that we are going to experiment more with this reagent. It is non clear only what hydrogen peroxide does in loosening impacted clay and other fine grained materials, only information technology has a salutatory effect. I accept not had much experience using this reagent on quartz, so any help from those more knowledgeable than I will be welcomed. The results of using this reagent on manganese oxides tin can be very dramatic. You drop the specimen into the solution and when the bubbles clear away in a infinitesimal or two, the specimen is magically make clean with all the blackness manganese oxide gone. I was once able in just a few minutes to clean many specimens of prehnite casts after laumontite that appeared to be hopelessly covered with blackness todorokite. Information technology was similar magic.

When working with chemicals like those above, you should not mix the different solutions together. This will sometimes produce unwelcome precipitates or react in ways that will exist unwelcome or dangerous.

We would like to solicit Mindaters, who take had experience with cleaning quartz of different kinds, to share their experiences with diverse chemicals by emailing united states of america so nosotros can make this article more comprehensive and useful. If there is something you don't understand or desire explained further, post a note on the board beneath and you will nearly certainly exist able to go further help. I take been called an skilful at present and and so just but when I kickoff to feel a piddling smug, an old friend reminds me that an ex is a has been and a spurt is a drip under force per unit area.

Rock Currier
Reviewed and proofread past George Holloway

Article has been viewed at least 469088 times.

zeringuebefory.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.mindat.org/article.php/403/Cleaning+Quartz#:~:text=Soap%20and%20Water%20To%20clean,indication%20of%20how%20to%20proceed.

Share this post