![]() ![]() rice husks) can be converted to SiC by heating in the excess carbon from the organic material. Fine SiO 2 particles in plant material (e.g. The simplest process to manufacture silicon carbide is to combine silica sand and carbon in an Acheson graphite electric resistance furnace at a high temperature, between 1,600 ☌ (2,910 ☏) and 2,500 ☌ (4,530 ☏). Silicon carbide is used as an abrasive, as well as a semiconductor and diamond simulant of gem quality. Two six-inch wafers made of silicon carbideīecause natural moissanite is extremely scarce, most silicon carbide is synthetic. In 1907 Henry Joseph Round produced the first LED by applying a voltage to a SiC crystal and observing yellow, green and orange emission at the cathode. In the beginning of the 20th century, silicon carbide was used as a detector in the first radios. This was followed by electronic applications. It may be that he named the material "carborundum" by analogy to corundum, which is another very hard substance (9 on the Mohs scale). It is said that Acheson was trying to dissolve carbon in molten corundum ( alumina) and discovered the presence of hard, blue-black crystals which he believed to be a compound of carbon and corundum: hence carborundum. In 1900 the company settled with the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company when a judge's decision gave "priority broadly" to its founders "for reducing ores and other substances by the incandescent method". Acheson also developed the electric batch furnace by which SiC is still made today and formed the Carborundum Company to manufacture bulk SiC, initially for use as an abrasive. Moissan also synthesized SiC by several routes, including dissolution of carbon in molten silicon, melting a mixture of calcium carbide and silica, and by reducing silica with carbon in an electric furnace.Īcheson patented the method for making silicon carbide powder on February 28, 1893. He called the blue crystals that formed carborundum, believing it to be a new compound of carbon and aluminium, similar to corundum. Acheson was attempting to prepare artificial diamonds when he heated a mixture of clay (aluminium silicate) and powdered coke (carbon) in an iron bowl. Wide-scale production is credited to Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1891. ![]() Albert Colson's heating of silicon under a stream of ethylene (1882).Paul Schuetzenberger's heating of a mixture of silicon and silica in a graphite crucible (1881).Robert Sydney Marsden's dissolution of silica in molten silver in a graphite crucible (1881). ![]()
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