How would a glass object produced with common beach sand look?

Question

I wonder what glass made from Coney Island Beach sand, for example, would look like. Are the impurities such that one couldn't create a glass object with this sand?

Answer 1

You could create a perfectly fine glass with such sand, only it would be mostly opaque and would look like a mixture of corn syrup with maple syrup and butter.

If you would just heat and fuse this sand, it would not create the nice clear glass you're accustomed of.

It would look and feel like rock hard frozen maple butter.

Answer 2

Yes, you are correct. The impurities are to great to produce glass of any quality that you would think of as glass. I once responded to a fire call where a high voltage power line fell near the beach, and the line arced electricity into the ground for so long that a large green and blue plug of hot glass was left behind in the sand. I dug it out after it cooled, and brought it home. It looks like really dirty glass, and is in the shape of a tornado. Pretty cool, but bad quality of glass.

Answer 3

The impurities in sand burn at relatively low temperatures compared with the melting point of sand, which you must attain to make glass. All glass is made of sand.

Answer 4

Brown like some beer bottles. Transparent glass requires very pure white sand.

Answer 5

More or less like ordinary glass....sand is pretty much silica (SiO2), which is one of the main ingredients in making glass.

Answer 6

dirty and cloudy