Silicon Carbide

About Silicon Carbide:

• It was discovered by the American inventor Edward G. Acheson in 1891. 
• Its chemical formula is SiC and it is the most widely used non-oxide ceramic.
• Properties
  • It is an exceedingly hard, synthetically produced crystalline compound of silicon and carbon.
  • In addition to hardness, silicon carbide crystals have fracture characteristics that make them extremely useful in grinding wheels and in abrasive paper and cloth products.
  • It has high thermal conductivity and high-temperature strength, low thermal expansion, and resistance to chemical reaction which makes it valuable in the manufacture of high-temperature bricks and other refractories.
  • It is also classed as a semiconductor, having an electrical conductivity between that of metals and insulating materials. 
  • This property, in combination with its thermal properties, makes SiC a promising substitute for traditional semiconductors such as silicon in high-temperature applications.
• Applications
  • It is used in refractory linings and heating elements for industrial furnaces, in wear-resistant parts for pumps and rocket engines.
  • In semiconducting substrates for light-emitting diodes.
  • Its primary application is as an abrasive because of its high hardness, which is surpassed only by diamond, cubic boron nitride, and boron carbide.

Q1: What is Silicon (Si)?

It is a nonmetallic chemical element in the carbon family (Group 14 [IVa] of the periodic table). Silicon makes up 27.7 percent of Earth’s crust; it is the second most abundant element in the crust, being surpassed only by oxygen.

Source: India's 1st Silicon Carbide manufacturing facility to be set up in Odisha