Silicon Information
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Silicon Element
Silicon is a chemical element
with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline
solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid and
semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic table: carbon is above
it; and germanium, tin, and lead are below it. It is relatively unreactive.
Because of its high chemical affinity for oxygen, it was not until 1823 that
Jöns Jakob Berzelius was first able to prepare it and characterize it in pure
form. Its oxides form a family of anions known as silicates. Its melting and
boiling points of 1414 °C and 3265 °C respectively are the second-highest among
all the metalloids and nonmetals, being only surpassed by boron. Silicon is the
eighth most common element in the universe by mass, but very rarely occurs as
the pure element in the Earth's crust. It is most widely distributed in dusts,
sands, planetoids, and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide (silica) or
silicates. More than 90% of the Earth's crust is composed of silicate minerals,
making silicon the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust (about 28%
by mass) after oxygen.
The name silicon derives from
the Latin silex or silicis, meaning “flint” or “hard stone.” Amorphous
elemental silicon was first isolated and described as an element in 1824 by
Jöns Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist. Impure silicon had already been
obtained in 1811. Crystalline elemental silicon was not prepared until 1854,
when it was obtained as a product of electrolysis. In the form of rock crystal,
however, silicon was familiar to the predynastic Egyptians, who used it for
beads and small vases; to the early Chinese; and probably to many others of the
ancients. The manufacture of glass containing silica was carried out both by
the Egyptians—at least as early as 1500 BCE—and by the Phoenicians. Certainly,
many of the naturally occurring compounds called silicates were used in various
kinds of mortar for construction of dwellings by the earliest people.
Most silicon is used
commercially without being separated, and often with little processing of the
natural minerals. Such use includes industrial construction with clays, silica
sand, and stone. Silicates are used in Portland cement for mortar and stucco, and
mixed with silica sand and gravel to make concrete for walkways, foundations,
and roads. They are also used in whiteware ceramics such as porcelain, and in
traditional quartz-based soda-lime glass and many other specialty glasses.
Silicon compounds such as silicon carbide are used as abrasives and components
of high-strength ceramics. Silicon is the basis of the widely used synthetic
polymers called silicones.
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