Amorphous silicon was discovered in 1823 when the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, reacting silicon tetrafluoride with molten potassium, obtaining silicon as a final result. It was in the year 1854 that Sainte-Claire Deville prepared crystalline silicon. Although this is the second most abundant element in the earth's crust, it is not free in the environment, but is mostly found as silicates and silica (SiO2).
This being a metalloid chemical element, its atomic number is 14 and it is located in group 14 of the periodic table, whose symbol is Si. This is used for the preparation of silicones, in alloys, in the technical ceramic industry, because it has a semiconductor material that is very abundant, it has a special interest in the electronic and microelectronic industry where it is used as base material in the production of wafers or chips that can be implanted in transistors, solar cells and a wide variety of electronic circuits.
Some of the important uses of silicon are:
- As a refractory material: it is used in enameled glass and ceramics.
- As a fertilizer: in the form of a primary mineral rich in silicon, for agriculture.
- As a functional alloying element.
- For the manufacture of window and insulating glass.
- Silicon carbide is one of the most important abrasives.
- It is used in lasers to obtain a light with a wavelength of 456 nm.
- Silicone is used in medicine, for implants in the breasts and in contact lenses.
Silicon is one of the main components in aeroliths, a class of meteoroids. Measured by weight, it represents more than a quarter of the earth's crust and whose element is the second most abundant after oxygen. This constitutes 27.72% of the solid crust of the earth, meanwhile oxygen constitutes 46.6% and the element that follows after silicon is aluminum, which is constituted by 8.13%.
Silicon has a melting point of 1,411 ° C, a relative density of 2.33 (g / ml), and a boiling point of 2,355 ° C. Its atomic mass is 28.086 u (atomic mass unit).
