• History: The start of wide-scale production of the silicon carbide and recognized and verified syntheses of silicon carbide: the experiment conducted by Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1890. He was trying to find a way to produce artificial diamonds, by heating clay (aluminum silicate) and carbon. Then the hexagonal crystals were found attaching to the carbon arc light used for heating. He called the blue crystals that formed carborundum. [1]

In 1893, Ferdinand Henri Moissan discovered the very rare naturally occurring SiC mineral while examining rock samples found in the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona. Also, some synthesizing method of SiC were found, 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.

At the same year, Acheson 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.

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.

• Manufacturing: the production in Acheson furnace: between 1,600 °C and 2,500 °C, fine SiO2 particles in plant material (e.g. rice husks) can be converted to SiC by heating in the excess carbon from the organic material. [2]

Pure silicon carbide: Lely process, in which SiC powder is sublimed into high-temperature species of silicon, carbon, silicon dicarbide, and di-silicon carbide in an argon gas ambient at 2500 °C and redeposited into flake-like single crystals. [3]

• Application: sandblasting injectors, automotive water pump seals, bearings, pump components, and extrusion dies that use high hardness, abrasion resistance, and corrosion resistance of carbide of silicon. High-temperature structural uses extend from the rocket injector grooves to the furnace rollers and the combination of high thermal conductivity, hardness and high temperature stability makes the components of the exchanger tubes of silicon carbide heat. [4]