Use
Barium carbonate has many major commercial applications in brick, glass, ceramics, oil-drilling, photographic and chemical industries. It is mixed with wet clay to immobilize many water-soluble salts in making uniform red bricks. In the glass industry, barium is added to glass as barium carbonate or barium oxide to improve the refractive index of optical glass and also to promote sintering and lower the viscosity of melted glass to make glass bead formation easy. It is used in the manufacture of television picture tubes and photographic paper. Another important application involves its use as a fluxing ingredient in ceramic industry for enamels, glazes and ceramic bodies. Barium carbonate is used in oil well drilling to insolubilize gypsum and inhibit coagulation; in ferrous metallurgy for steel carburizing; in chloralkali cells for treating salt brines to remove sulfates; and to make ferrites, and barium titanate.