Chemiker
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Fun with silicon
does anyone know anything fun to do with silicon that uses very simple equipment?
i am just starting to outfit my home lab and all i have are some flasks, test tubes, and two seperatory funnels.
i am asking if anyone knows a simple synthesis that involves silicon. i have access only to very easily obtained chemicals, except that i have a 50
gallon drum of 98% sulfuric acid.
any help on this issue is greatly appreciated
thanks
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chemoleo
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Silicon tetrachloride is one for starters. All you need is chlorine gas, and no high temps as far as I remember. Brauer I am sure has a prep for it, I
can look it up if you want.
From SiCl4 you can obviously start making a number of interesting silicon based compounds, i.e. add NaOEt, and get Si(OET)4...
Want to know more?
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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chloric1
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What form is it in?
Silicon in powder form can be usied in thermite type reactions. Lump form may be more tricky. And I would say chlorine would react with silicon above
about 400C I dont think it would be at ambient temperatures.
Oh just found this! Way cool! Maybe you could use argon as your inert gas. Sorry about the long post
Abstract: Magnesium metal was produced from dolomite ore under inert atmosphere using ferrosilicon as a reducing agent. The kinetics of the
silicothermic reduction process was studied at a temperature range from 1150-1300 °C. The charges studied are in the form of briquettes. The
parameters studied are silicon stoichiometry, temperature and time of preheating, calcium fluoride additive, molar ratios of calcium oxide/magnesium
oxide, flow rate of inert gas, briquetting pressure, temperature and time of reduction process. The maximum reduction extent of about 92% was achieved
when using charges in the form of briquettes containing 2.5 wt.% CaF2, CaO/MgO molar ratio of 1.6 and using silicon as reductant with its weight
ratio/MgO equals 1.45 at 1300 °C for 5 hours. The discussion takes into considerations the type of intermediate compounds formed during the reduction
and the mechanism of the silicothermic reduction process. It was found that the silicothermic reduction process of dolomite ore is a solid-state
reaction controlled by diffusion of reacted species and the apparent activation energy obtained equals 306 KJ.mol-1.
[Edited on 11/11/2004 by chloric1]
Fellow molecular manipulator
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hodges
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I've heard that if you attach wires to a piece of silicon (using aligator clips, for example) it makes a photocell (resistor that changes value
depending on light level).
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Chemiker
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as a reply to chemoleo, i would like to know more but i don't know what (OET) is,
and i have silicon chunks, about 4, 2 gram pieces, they are a little bigger than standard marbles.
what kind of vessel would i have to contruct/have to react the silion with the chlorine.
hodges i would like to learn more aboutthis phoo cel i could make, if you direct me to a site that would be great...or i could just go searching on my
own.
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garage chemist
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Alloy the silicon with magnesium, this forms magnesium silicide.
When this is put into dilute hydrochloric acid, silane is formed, a flammable gas which self- ignites on contact with air.
This reaction looks really nice: bubbles rise to the surface of the liquid and burst into flames as they pop.
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The_Davster
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NaOEt is sodium ethoxide, NaOC2H5. Et being short for ethyl.
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neutrino
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If you make silicon ethoxide, you could add the correct amount of water and end up with a sol-gel. Wash the ethanol and water out with a supercritical
extraction and you have an aerogel. Unfortunately, this last part is a bit hard.
You could try making Cl<sub>2</sub>Si(CH<sub>3</sub> <sub>2</sub> and making your glassware hydrophobic with this. For more information on this see this thread.
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