World Pumice Stone Supplier From Indonesia
Pumice is a very light weight, porous and abrasive material and it has been used for centuries in the construction and beauty industry as well as in early medicine.
It is also used as an abrasive, especially in polishes, pencil erasers, and the production of stone-washed jeans. Pumice was also used in the early book making industry to prepare parchment paper and leather bindings.
There is high demand for pumice, particularly for water filtration, chemical spill containment, cement manufacturing, horticulture and increasingly for the pet industry.
Pumice For Personal care
Pumice soap bars
Pumice has been used as a material in personal care for thousands of years.
It is an abrasive material that can be used in powdered form or as a stone to remove unwanted hair or skin.
In ancient Egypt skincare and beauty were important and makeup and moisturizers were widely used. One common trend was to remove all hair on the body using creams, razors and pumice stones.
Pumice in powdered form was an ingredient in toothpastes in ancient Rome.
Nail care was very important in ancient China; nails were kept groomed with pumice stones, and pumice stones were also used to remove calluses.
It was discovered in a Roman poem that pumice was used to remove dead skin as far back as 100 BC, and likely before then.
It has been used throughout many eras since then, including the Victorian Era.
Today, many of these techniques are still used; pumice is widely used as a skin exfoliant. Even though hair removal techniques have evolved over the centuries, abrasive material like pumice stones are also still used.
“Pumice stones” are often used in beauty salons during the pedicure process to remove dry and excess skin from the bottom of the foot as well as calluses.
Finely ground pumice has been added to some toothpastes as a polish, similar to Roman use, and easily removes dental plaque build up. Such toothpaste is too abrasive for daily use.
Pumice is also added to heavy-duty hand cleaners (such as lava soap) as a mild abrasive.
Some brands of chinchilla dust bath are formulated with powdered pumice.
Old beauty techniques using pumice are still employed today but newer substitutes are easier to obtain.
Pumice For Cleaning
Bar of solid pumice stone
Pumice stone, sometimes attached to a handle, is an effective scrubbing tool for removal of limescale, rust, hard water rings, and other stains on porcelain fixtures in households (e.g., bathrooms).
It is a quick method compared to alternatives like chemicals or vinegar and baking soda or borax.
Pumice For Horticulture
A good soil requires sufficient water and nutrient loading as well as little compaction to allow easy exchange of gases.
The roots of plants require continuous transportation of carbon dioxide and oxygen to and from the surface.
Pumice improves the quality of soil because of its porous properties, water and gases can be transported easily through the pores and nutrients can be stored in the microscopic holes.
Pumice rock fragments are inorganic therefore no decomposition and little compaction occurs.
Another benefit of this inorganic rock is that it does not attract or host fungi or insects. Drainage is very important in horticulture, with the presence of pumice tillage is much easier.
Pumice usage also creates ideal conditions for growing plants like cacti and succulents as it increases the water retention in sandy soils and reduces the density of clayey soils to allow more transportation of gases and water.
Addition of pumice to a soil improves and increases vegetative cover as the roots of plants make slopes more stable therefore it helps reduce erosion.
It is often used on roadsides and ditches and commonly used in turf and golf courses to maintain grass cover and flatness that can degrade due to large amounts of traffic and compaction.
With regard to chemical properties pumice is pH neutral, it is not acidic or alkaline.
In 2011, 16% of pumice mined in the United States was used for horticultural purposes.
Pumice contributes to soil fertility in areas where it is naturally present in the soil due to volcanic activity.
For example, in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico, the Ancestral Puebloans settled on “pumice patches” of the El Cajete Pumice which likely retained a greater amount of moisture and was ideal for farming.
Pumice For Construction
Pumice is widely used to make lightweight concrete and insulative low-density cinder blocks.
The air filled vesicles in this porous rock serves as a good insulator.
A fine-grained version of pumice called pozzolan is used as an additive in cement and is mixed with lime to form a light-weight, smooth, plaster-like concrete.
This form of concrete was used as far back as Roman times.
Roman engineers utilized it to build the huge dome of the Pantheon with increasing amounts of pumice added to concrete for higher elevations of the structure.
It was also commonly used as a construction material for many aqueducts.
One of the main uses of pumice currently in the United States is manufacturing concrete.
This rock has been used in concrete mixtures for thousands of years and continues to be used in producing concrete, especially in regions close to where this volcanic material is deposited.
New studies prove a broader application of pumice powder in the concrete industry.
Pumice can act as a cementitious material in concrete and researchers have shown that concrete made with up to 50% pumice powder can significantly improve durability yet reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption.
Pumice For Early medicine
Pumice has been used in the medicinal industry for more than 2000 years. Ancient Chinese medicine used ground pumice along with ground mica and fossilized bones added to teas to calm the spirit.
This tea was used to treat dizziness, nausea, insomnia, and anxiety disorders. Ingestion of these pulverized rocks were actually able to soften nodules and was later used with other herbal ingredients to treat gallbladder cancer and urinary difficulties.
In western medicine, beginning in the early 18th century, pumice was ground into a sugar consistency and with other ingredients was used to treat ulcers mostly on the skin and cornea.
Concoctions such as these were also used to help wounds scar in a healthier manner. In approximately 1680 it was noted by an English naturalist that pumice powder was used to promote sneezing.