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The electric furnace at Niagara Falls has been able to produce still another combination in the form of siloxicon by heating carbon and silicon to a temperature slightly below that required to produce carborundum. This product is a highly refractory material and is valuable for the manufacture of crucibles, muffles, bricks, etc., for work where extreme temperatures are employed.
To many of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America's pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunity, the frontier of high technology.
Tell me, Doctor, how many elements have you discovered in them?" "Nearly thirty," answered the doctor. "And one interesting fact is, that the three elements most common in the earth iron, silicon, and oxygen are also found most widely distributed among the meteorites."
Bessemer conceived the idea that the injurious constituents of raw iron such as silicon, sulphur, etc. might be got rid of by simple oxidation. The mass of crude metal was heated to a very high temperature; atmospheric air was forced through it at a considerable pressure; and the oxygen uniting with these metalloids carried them off in the form of acid gases.
The best composition which had been found for moulds was that of a large firm in Sheffield, but unfortunately it was rather expensive. A good steel casting ought to contain about 0.3 per cent. carbon and 0.3 per cent. of silicon and from 0.6 to 1 per cent. of manganese.
These include sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, cobalt, silver, lead, tin, zinc, titanium, aluminium, chromium, silicon, carbon, hydrogen and several others. It was thus established that in the constitution of the sun many of the well-known elements of the earth are present. There could be no mistake about it.
A mile away there's an ample deposit of graphite carbon. Thus, there exists a complete local source of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, ideal for synthesizing various hydrocarbonic chemicals or making complicated polyethylene materials such as stellene, so useful in space. Lead, too, is not very far off. Silicon is, of course, available everywhere.
It is tested by volatilisation of the silica as silicon fluoride after solution in hydrofluoric acid, and, if the analysis has been properly conducted, the residue, after treatment with the acids and ignition, should not exceed 1 mg.
The electric furnace enables various elements to be isolated, such. as silicon, sodium, and phosphorus, and when obtained in their pure state they find wide application. The most important electro-chemical work of the future is to devise some means of obtaining nitrogen from the air.
You couldn't do better. But I'll keep an eye on you, and perhaps I'll be able to help you a little, too." I thanked him gratefully. A famous artist, who started out in youth to embrace a military career and who failed to pass an examination at West Point, is said to have remarked that if silicon had been a gas he would have been a soldier.
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