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Hollow microspheres
At the suggestion of a member of this forum, I am posting information on my hollow microspheres and other perlite products. I have been involved with finding applications for and selling hollow glass microspheres, perlite and not perlite, for over 25 years. Along the way, I have also used and sold solid glass microspheres, hollow ceramic microspheres and plastic microspheres, usually for industrial applications. My definition of a microsphere is a round particle smaller than either 150 microns or 300 microns, depending on the material.
My standard grades include:
Grade Average particle size, microns Effective Specific Gravity
32 70 0.18
42 45 0.25
35 40 0.28About a year ago, we developed a grade 50, with an average particle size of about 25 microns and an effective specific gravity of about 0.34. This grade contains more unicellular particles than the others, which contain predominantly multicellular particles. This grade, as one might expect from the small particle size, behaves differently on the skin as well. For the record, the pH of perlite is neutral (7).
Around the world, perlite is produced with the intent of making much larger particles than these, sometimes over 5 mm. Another type of commercially available standard perlite is sold to filtration markets. This consists of broken shards that create a porous 3D structure that can trap unwanted particles from liquid or air streams during the production of wine or beer, for example. Finer grades of this filter aid are currently being sold for use by one particular producer to various cosmetics manufacturers around the world to trap moisture and possibly as an exfoliant material. A search for perlite on INCI reveals that a listing exists for the material for those uses.
American Stone Pioneers offers the innovative microspheres, with and without hydrophobic coatings, as well as the more well known filter aid type grades plus larger grades as needed.
My contact information is as follows:
Name: Ken Wiener
E-mail: americanstone@hotmail.com
Phone: +1-310-377-7977
Address: P.O. Box 4083, Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274 USAI tried to post a picture of particles, but went way over the limit of characters allowed here. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to both positive and negative comments.
Ken
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