As eco-friendly lifestyles gain in popularity, questions regarding whether Silicon is an environmentally sustainable material are frequently raised. The answer is in the affirmative.
Plants lacking silicon become more vulnerable to biological pests and environmental stressors due to being biologically stronger when supplemented with this microelement.
Metallurgical Applications
Green silicon is used widely in industries that deal with metallic alloys, such as the steel and aluminum industries. Refractories utilizing green silicon also increase performance of high-temperature furnaces and kilns by producing foam ceramics and special ceramics, thus improving overall furnace and kiln performance.
Silicon is also the key raw material in producing polysilicon, an integral part of solar energy technology that has seen worldwide adoption as an alternative source of power.
Abrasive SiC is available in two grades, a green variety that is 97%-99% pure and an impure black variety (Fig. 1.9). The green abrasive can be used for grinding hard alloys and brittle metals like glass or carbides as well as plastics; precision grinding cylinder liners or honing steel tools is also possible with this grade of SiC abrasive.
In the metal industry, metallurgical grade silicon is utilized as a deoxidizer in LD/BOF/ladle furnaces and combined with raw materials to produce alumina and ferrosilicon. Furthermore, SiC-based silicon carbide ceramics made with this grade of silicon enhance quality and strength of metal products.
Thermal spraying of thermal grade silicon coating surfaces for increased wear and corrosion resistance is another use for it. Furthermore, composite materials often incorporate silicon-containing reinforcements for strength and thermal stability improvement. Electronics hardware manufacturing industries as well as metal production will likely continue to drive demand for this metallurgical grade silicon product in coming years.
Thermal Spraying
Thermal spraying is a technique in which hot materials such as metals, ceramics, composites or metal alloys are applied directly onto surfaces to increase corrosion, wear and erosion resistance qualities. Thermal spraying can be found across industries like aerospace, power generation and oil and gas as a means to coat new or refurbishing parts against high temperatures, corrosion and friction resistance.
Thermal spraying techniques typically utilized are HVOF, HAVS, cold spray and deposition by plasma. Each of these processes utilize a mixture of gaseous fuels (oxygen, air or nitrogen) and electrical energy to bring the feedstock powder to a molten state and then accelerate at high velocities until flattened lamellae form and stack onto surfaces upon impact.
These processes can deposit a variety of materials, from ceramics and metallics to polymers and composites, with these processes producing deposits with contact angles as large as 163 degrees. A great deal of research has gone into studying how functional coatings such as these may achieve smart properties like antimicrobial, self-cleaning and self-lubricating abilities. Gutierrez et al. used wire arc thermal spray on medium density fiberboard used commonly found in furniture to apply copper antimicrobial material that had antimicrobial properties against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli strains; similarly Xu et al. also achieved superhydrophobic coatings with contact angles of 163deg.
Glass
Green silicon is widely utilized within the glass industry as a polishing agent for specialty glasses. It is especially effective at shortening sintering times and producing fine finishes, while surface treatment to improve metal and glass products’ quality is another use for green silicon, along with thermal spraying to provide corrosion resistance in metalworking applications and solar energy sectors. Green silicon also plays an integral part in improving efficiency and longevity for photovoltaic cells.
Duran (Duran Group), Pyrex, Glassco, Supertek Jenaer Glas Fiolax Kavalierglass A.s.simax Simax Marinex Brazil Endural are among the main producers of borosilicate glass containers and equipment for laboratories as well as drinking glasses made of this material. Borosilicate glass has many applications such as lab containers as well as drinking glasses.
Researchers conducted extensive investigations of the lithium-ion anodes made from glass-derived silicon. Their researchers observed that reduced gSi with its enhanced lithiation capacity reached 3579 mAh g-1 at ambient temperature. This result was achieved using magnesiothermic reduction with an interconnected morphology without cracks and pores, and conformally amorphous carbon coating on all gSi surfaces. Additionally, morphology-protected gSi has superior mechanical properties thanks to its small particle size and excellent chemical stability, offering great promise for large-scale energy storage applications involving this material. Furthermore, due to its low emission levels it makes an ideal candidate for glass-ceramic electrodes.
Solar Energy
Due to solar panels’ increasing popularity, there is an incentive to lower their environmental impact by recycling their silicon rather than extracting from raw material deposits or mining directly from the earth.
Solar PV panels convert sunlight to electricity by producing an electric field in silicon, then collecting and transmitting it through metal conductive plates on either side of the panels. Although a remarkable technology, its production requires significant amounts of energy. While industry efforts to increase efficiency have reduced silicon usage per panel, further gains may be realized through powering polysilicon production with renewable sources of energy.
Recyclable silicon is a key component of a strong solar PV industry, and the United States has the opportunity to lead in this space. A key step should be strengthening policies to support domestic production capacity, thus decreasing dependency on imported material from China.
Today there are various methods available to recover silicon from PV panels, mechanical processing such as shredding and milling (B. Sorensen 2017) high voltage pulse treatment heat knife thermal processing pyrolysis thermal treatment has proven most successful at isolating glass from silicon-containing materials while recovering over 91% in one instance (fig 15).
English 
Swedish