How to Distinguish Calcite and Crystal

Calcite and crystal are alike and it easy to confuse them, this article will show you how to distinguish Calcite and crystal clearly. Crystal is generally used for decoration and in high price, calcite is mainly processed by calcite grinding mill and used for industrial raw materials and in cheap price. Let’s distinguish them in the following aspects:

 1. Physical Appearance

Calcite: it is a crystal in various shapes, and their aggregates may be a cluster of crystals, or may be granular, massive, fibrous, stalactite, earthy, and etc. Calcite has the luster as glass, transparent to translucent, generally in white or colorless, and some also contains many other colors, such as light yellow, light red, brown black, etc.

Crystal: it is a pure, colorless and transparent large quartz crystal mineral with multiple colors due to the inclusion of different tramp material. Amethyst contains manganese and iron, topaz contains iron in golden or yellow, rose quartz contains manganese and titanium, citrine is in brown, black quartz is in transparent black.

Calcite production line

2. Chemical Property

Calcite: the main component is calcium carbonate

Crystal: The main component is silica

3. Physical testing

Calcite: Slit it with a small knife, there would be an obvious line.

Crystal: Slit it with a small knife, nothing happens.

This is because that crystal Moh's hardness is 7, Calcite is 3, small knife is about 6.5.

Though the price of calcite is much lower than crystal, it has a very widely range of uses as an essential material. The market demand for fine calcite powder is gradually increasing.

4. Chemical Reagent Testing

Calcite: Drip Dilute hydrochloric acid on the surface of calcite, bubbles will appear quickly.

Crystal: Drip Dilute hydrochloric acid on the surface of calcite, no reaction