Patent ID: 7927670

Claim:
A process for manufacturing silica microspheres (M) from a silica microsphere precursor (MS, PR 1 ), comprising steps of: pretreating the silica microsphere precursor (MS, PR 1 ), by mixing the silica microsphere precursor (MS, PR 1 ) in water (W) with at least one additive (AD), which is an expansion agent and/or a binding agent and/or a fluxing agent, in order to obtain a precursor composition (PR 1 ′), and injecting the silica precursor composition obtained in the previous step into an inductive plasma (P), wherein a step of coating the precursor composition (PR 1 ′) with synthetic silica powder (S) is carried out by spraying the precursor composition (PR 1 ′) onto a vibrating table ( 60 ) supporting an anti-wetting agent (AM) and said synthetic silica powder (S), the anti-wetting agent (AM) preferably consisting of a plant-based material, in particular lycopodium spores.