I am designing my new kitchen and I have decided that I want darker stained wood cabinets. I'd like a cream or white counter top... but I don't know anything about the upkeep or price of either. Our builder has budgeted for granite, but I haven't been able to find any pricing on quartz. I haven't looked very long, though. Thanks for any help.
Quartz. Quartz is number 7 on the hardness scale, so its pretty tough stuff. Quartz is SiO2 (silicone dioxide) - doesn't react with much. Limestone is CaCO3 (calcium carbonate) - a base. Take a limestone driveway chip in to your chemistry teacher and have them drop some dilute acid on it and see what happens. If they have a piece of quartz, try that too. Not much happens to the quartz. Look at some old limestone headstones in an old cemetery. Acid rain (carbonic acid H2CO3) has etched all the writing away. Why do you think sinkholes form in limestone valleys? Carbonic acid has weakened the limestone bedrock and etched it out. Eventually it collapses from its own weight. Quartz is the winner. Although it will be a very expensive house. And see-through!
quartz, of course. Limestone reacts with acids and dissolves.
Quartz. Besides limestone being more reactive to the acid than quartz is, it is more porous than quartz (which is a crystal). By being more porous, limestone will accumulate traces of the acid rain within its infrastructure where it can settle and continue to erode the stone past the point of the original damage.
quartz becuase limestone is very reactive with acid rain... it also is softer, so it weathers more than quartz
A Quartz building. Limestone is a sedimentary rock is formed from calcium carbonate deposits (among other items). On top of that, calcium carbonate is a basic (alkaline) chemical and will react with acid rain. It also has a significantly lower hardness than quartz. Quartz is a metamorphic rock which has been formed by exposing rock comprised of silicon dioxide to extreme conditions (pressure, temperatute, et. al) which give it a significantly higher hardness than limestone. Also silicon dioxide is not as reactive as calcium carbonate.
