Mineral-based porous sand and methods for making mineral-based porous sand

A method to manufacture a mineral-based porous, permeable, granular non-consolidated material, comprising:

• providing a starting material comprising at least 70% by weight of a naturally occurring micaceous arkose rock material, and wherein:
• the micaceous arkose rock material contains at least 30% by weight of mica:
• the starting material is in a granular form;
• and
• at least about 50% by volume of the starting material has a mean diameter of between about 0.060 mm and about 0.65 mm;
• placing the starting material into a bed on a support surface;
• placing the support surface containing the bed of the starting material into a kiln;
• subjecting the bed of starting material within the kiln to a basic processing temperature of between about 1100° C. and about 1300° C. for a basic processing temperature processing time selected to transform at least 30% by weight of micaceous components in the micaceous arkose rock material into feldspar containing metal sulfides, and to evolve at least 30 percent by volume of the metal sulfides within the feldspar from the feldspar as metallic oxides in a gaseous form;
• removing the gaseous form of the metal oxides from the starting material;
• and
• thereafter cooling the kilned starting material to an ambient temperature.