Wholesale Fluorite Crystals

Fluorite is also known as soft crystal and colorful gemstone in the jewelry industry. Fluorite is also known as fluorspar in mineralogy. Its main chemical composition is calcium fluoride (CaF2), and it usually also contains impurities such as billion, ornaments, iron oxide, alumina, and silica.

Pure Fluorite is colorless, but the color of Fluorite is very rich, and almost any other color can be seen except red and black.

Common colors are: light green to dark green, blue, green-blue, purple, brown, yellow, pink, gray, brown, rose red, dark red, colorless, etc., and often a variety of colors coexist in a piece of Fluorite. , forming a colorful pattern.

Fluorite has two types of luminescence: fluorescence and phosphorescence.

Fluorescence means that the light source can still emit light for a short time after the light source is irradiated.

Phosphorescence belongs to the internal energy luminescence caused by rare earth ions and can continue to emit light without external light source supplementation.

Fluorite, which can emit phosphorescence, is rare and precious and has collection value.

Indians discovered the peculiarity of fluorite for a long time. According to legend, there were a lot of cobras on a hill in ancient India. These cobras always circled around some strange-looking stones.

This phenomenon aroused people’s curiosity, so the courageous people carefully observed it and found that these stones would emit a strange fluorescent luster when night fell.

These lights would then attract many phototaxis insects, the gathering of insects caused many frogs to jump out and compete for food, and the cobras hiding not far away also preyed on the frogs. Therefore, people first called this luminous stone “snake’s eye,” and these stones are fluorite.

It is named fluorite because it emits beautiful fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet rays. The chemical expression for fluorite is CaF.

 Fluorite is the primary raw material for the industrial extraction of fluorine. The color of fluorite is vibrant; standard colors are green, blue, green-blue, yellow, purple, gray, brown, red and so on. Aggregates are often in the form of crystals, granules, strips, blocks, etc.

The single crystal form is cube, octahedron, and rhombic dodecahedron. Grid-like stripes parallel to the edges often appear on the cubic crystal plane. High transparency, vitreous to sub-vitreous luster. Hardness 4, density 3.18g/cm.

There are four groups of complete cleavage, and it is easy to crack along the cleavage plane during processing. Optical homogeneous body, observed with crossed polarized light as total extinction. Some varieties have a color-changing effect, and fluorite mixed with rare earth elements will emit phosphorescence.

To highlight fluorite’s color, counterfeiters use special methods to optimize the fluorite, filling plastic or resin, filling phosphor, coating, and irradiation.

Filled with plastic or resin

Filling fluorite with plastic or resin is to heal surface cracks so they will not shatter when processed or worn. When identifying the filled fluorite, it can be checked with a magnifying glass, and it will be found that there is plastic or resin in the cracks. When tested with a hot needle, if it is filled with fusible resin or plastic, it will have a spicy and pungent smell. Filled plastics and resins also emit special fluorescence when viewed under UV fluorescence. Colorless fluorite can be irradiated to produce purple.

phosphorescent powder

Phosphor powder, also known as luminous powder, is a synthetic ultra-fine luminous material prepared by aluminate, boron dioxide and rare earth elements in a certain proportion. Fluorite filled with phosphor powder shows that its cleavage and cracks have strong luminescence, and other places have no luminescence or weak luminescence.

coating

The coating is a green or transparent glue containing phosphorescent powder on the surface of fluorite. Its characteristic is that it can emit strong green light or white light under darker conditions during the day, and the specific luminous color is controlled by phosphorescent powder. The surface of the Yellowstone treated with the coating method has a waxy luster, and it feels astringent when touched by hand and softer when pierced with a needle on the bead’s surface.

irradiate

Irradiation is to irradiate fluorite, which has no phosphorescence effect, to produce a phosphorescence effect. Usually, fluorite can be irradiated with rays to produce a phosphorescence effect because the energy of gamma rays is small, so this type of fluorite is not radioactive. The fluorite irradiated by γ-rays is uniform throughout the body, and the luminescence can be maintained for about three months. This radiation treatment cannot be clearly identified using current jewelry identification equipment.

heat treatment

When fluorite is made into jewelry, the dark blue to black fluorite can be turned blue by heating. This heat-treated fluorite is generally difficult to identify, and its color is stable in an environment below 300°C.

Human beings have a long history of developing and utilizing fluorite resources. For example, in ancient Roman times, people used fluorite to carve cups, bowls, bottles, etc.

In China, 7,000 years ago, the Hemudu people in Yuyao, Zhejiang, began to use fluorite as ornaments. Fluorite can also relieve tension, eliminate negative states, and bring a happy and happy state of mind.

Maintenance

Under strong light irradiation, the purple color of fluorite will fade and gradually become light green. This is an irreversible chemical process, so it is necessary to prevent strong light exposure during maintenance. At the same time, try to avoid sulfur touch, scratches, etc.

Use

Because of its large size and rich colors, fluorite is often made into various accessories, but it should not be worn with natural crystals, as the crystals will scratch the fluorite. Fluorite can increase people’s aesthetics and affinity, open intelligence, improve spirituality, and increase thinking and predictive ability. At the same time, fluorite directly mined from mines has certain radiation and should not be placed in the bedroom.