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Silicon metal is very versatile and used in many fields. What is silicon metal made from ? The following Hensfate Metal will share the relevant knowledge of metal silicon production for you in detail.

Metal silicon, also known as industrial silicon or crystalline silicon, is usually made by reducing silicon dioxide with carbon in an electric furnace. Its main use is as an additive for non-iron-based alloys and as a starting material for the production of semiconductor silicon and organic silicon.

What is silicon metal made from？

Silicon metal is a product smelted by quartz and coke in the electric heating furnace. The content of silicon element is about 98%, and the rest impurities are iron, aluminum, calcium, etc.The smelting of metal silicon with quartz sand as the raw material includes several steps of quartz sand making, charge preparation and submerged arc furnace smelting.

What is silicon metal?

In my country, metallic silicon is usually classified according to the content of the three main impurities, iron, aluminum, and calcium. According to the percentage content of iron, aluminum and calcium in metallic silicon, metallic silicon can be divided into different grades such as silicon metal 553, 441, 411, 421, 3303, 2202, 1101.(About the source of the metal silicon number: the first and second codes are the percentage content of iron and aluminum, and the third and fourth digits represent the content of calcium. For example, 553 represents the content of iron, aluminum and calcium of 5% and 5% , 3%; 3303 represents that the content of iron, aluminum and calcium is 3%, 3%, 0.3%).

First, let's take a look at the production process of metallic silicon:

The production of metal silicon adopts the carbothermic method, which is a method of smelting in a submerged arc furnace with silica and carbonaceous reducing agent. The purity of the silicon prepared in this way is 97% to 98%, and such silicon can generally be used in metallurgy. If higher-grade silicon is to be obtained, it needs to be refined to remove impurities to obtain metallic silicon with a purity of 99.7%-99.8%.

What is silicon metal made from？

At present, the production process route of the carbothermal method for the production of metallic silicon in China: generally uses silica as the raw material, petroleum coke, charcoal, wood chips, low ash coal, etc. as the reducing agent, and is smelted in a submerged electric furnace at high temperature, from the silica The metal silicon is reduced, which is a slag-free submerged arc high-temperature smelting process.

The above is what Hensfate metal shared for you about how metal silicon is produced；For more information about silicon metal, please feel free to consult us.