• 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]

Silicon carbide (SiC) is an important abrasive due to its high hardness, but its application range exceeds that of ordinary abrasive.For example, due to its high temperature resistance and thermal conductivity, it has become one of the preferred materials for tunnel kilns or shuttle kilns, and its electrical conductivity makes it an important electrical heating element.

Silicon carbide was established in 1891 by American acheson fused diamond experiment, accidentally discovered a carbide in the laboratory, was mistaken for diamond mixture, hence the name emery, acheson study out 1893 industrial smelting silicon carbide method, namely we often say that acheson furnace, has been in use today, with the carbon materials for furnace core body resistance furnace, electric heat quartz SIO2 mixture formation of silicon carbide and carbon.

A couple of things about silicon carbide

1. Silicon carbide was first discovered in meteorites in 1905.
2. 1907 the first silicon carbide crystal light-emitting diode was born.
3. In 1955, a major breakthrough in theory and technology, LELY put forward the concept of growing high-quality carbonization, and from then on, SiC was used as an important electronic material.
4. 1958 the first world silicon carbide conference was held in Boston for academic exchange.
5. Silicon carbide was mainly studied in the Soviet union in the 1960s and 1970s.
6. By 1978, the "LELY improved technology" was adopted for the first time to purify and grow grains.
7. 1987 ~ present: established silicon carbide production line based on the research results of CREE, and suppliers began to provide commercial silicon carbide base.

Due to its low natural content, silicon carbide is mainly man-made.

Common method is to quartz sand mixed with coke, the use of silica and petroleum coke, add salt and wood chips, put in the furnace, high temperature heated to a temperature of about 2000 ° C, after all kinds of chemical process for silicon carbide powder.

SiC smelting blocks are usually made of quartz, petroleum coke and other raw materials, auxiliary recycled materials, spent materials, after grinding and other processes to become a reasonable proportion of reasonable size of the furnace charge (in order to adjust the air permeability of the furnace charge need to add the right amount of wood chips, green silicon carbide preparation also add the right amount of salt) after high temperature preparation.

In the above layers, the unreacted materials and part of the oxygen carborundum layer materials are usually collected as waste materials, and another part of the oxygen carborundum layer materials are collected together with amorphous materials, second grade products and part of the binder as the return furnace charge, while some of the adhesives with tight bond, high lumpiness and many impurities are discarded. The first grade becomes black or green SiC particles of various sizes after classification, coarse crushing, fine crushing, chemical treatment, drying and screening, magnetic separation. In order to make silicon carbide powder, it has to go through the process of water separation. To make silicon carbide products also go through the process of molding and sintering.

Silicon carbide is the future ceramics with quite many interesting properties and absolutely wide applications. It has better mechanical and refractory properties than most metal materials such as high hardness, low thermal expansion, the thermal conductivity or thermal diffusivity tends to be substantially higher than those of the other structural ceramics[4], good resistance at high temperatures. And it has good electrical conductivity, non-linear electrical resistance Furthermore, it changes the situation that ceramics are brittle and fragile. Thus, the silicon carbide is the material with a promising future.

During the whole journey, the tasks were distributed among the group members efficiently and finished on time. The discussions of the content of the webpage, the research on the silicon carbide were productive, during which process we learned more about accordence of a group and groupwork. The coordination of parts were accomplished as well.

We express thanks to Science and Technology on Thermostructural Composite National Laboratory and Professor Laifei Cheng that provide the materials and experimental conditions. Besides, we express thanks to our PDP teacher Faith and Matt who provide many helpful suggestions to our poster and website page.

[1] "The Manufacture of Carborundum- a New Industry". Scientific American. April 7, 1894.

[2] Vlasov, A.S.; et al. (1991). "Obtaining silicon carbide from rice husks". Refractories and Industrial Ceramics. 32 (9–10): 521–523. doi:10.1007/bf01287542.

[3] Zhong, Y.; Shaw, Leon L.; Manjarres, Misael & Zawrah, Mahmoud F. (2010). "Synthesis of Silicon Carbide Nanopowder Using Silica Fume". Journal of the American Ceramic Society. 93 (10): 3159–3167. doi:10.1111/j.1551-2916.2010.03867.x.

[4] Rich Miron “Silicon Carbide (SiC): History and Applications”

https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2016/dec/silicon-carbide-history-and-applications. Accessed on 20 May 2019.

[5] Liu Weifeng. “Preparation and thermal conductivity of SiC_f/SiC composites” [D]. National Defense University of Science and Technology, 2006.

[6] Yang Shuai. “Preparation and Mechanical Properties of unidirectional SiC/SiC Composites” [J]. Journal of Northwestern Polytechnical University. 2018

[7] Matweb. Material Property Data. Silicon Carbide, CVD

http://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet.aspx?MatGUID=a4a60a0e517e4a35b49c0fa374265266&ckck=1. Accessed on 20 May 2019.

[8] Matmatch. Silicon Carbide Powder (SI516021)

https://matmatch.com/materials/good00077-silicon-carbide-powder-si516021. Accessed on 18 May 2019.

[9] 3M Science United Kingdom. SDS Search.

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_zu8lzNvm8294xmx5v70k17zHvu9lxtD7SSSSSS. Accessed on 19 May 2019.

[10] CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The National Institude for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Silicon carbide. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0555.html. Accessed on 18 May 2019.

[11] CES Edupack 2018. Accessed on 20 May 2019.