Black Silicon Carbide

Black silicon carbide (also referred to as carborundum) is an extremely hard synthetic crystalline compound of silicon and carbon, used as an important material in sandpaper, grinding wheels and cutting tools as well as for refractory linings and electrical heating elements in industrial furnaces.

Black silicon carbide is also widely utilized as an abrasive and blasting media in aerospace components, non slip flooring and precision surface finishing applications, and reaction sintering of silicon carbide ceramics.

Hardness

Silicon carbide, more commonly referred to as black silicon carbide or a-SiC, is a hard and durable chemical compound composed of both carbon and silicon atoms. Naturally found as moissanite gemstone, mass production started in 1893 for use as an abrasive and other industrial purposes. A versatile material which offers strength and resilience against extreme environments.

A-SiC is known for its impressive hardness, which allows it to withstand wear in harsh environments without cracking or breaking under stress. Furthermore, its resistance to thermal shock ensures its integrity even in high-temperature applications and its superior mechanical properties such as its fracture toughness of 6.8 MPa m0.5 fracture toughness and Young’s modulus of 440 GPa means it can withstand significant stresses without cracking or breaking.

Black silicon carbide powder’s exceptional hardness enables its use as an abrasive to grind and cut hard and soft materials, including glass, ceramics, stone, refractory materials and cast iron. It is often added as an ingredient to industrial abrasives such as grinding wheels and cutting discs; additionally it is utilized in aerospace and automotive industries to honing, lapping and polish components to achieve precise dimensions with smooth surfaces.

A-SiC can also be useful in metallurgical applications, serving as both a deoxidizer in steelmaking and producing silicon tetrachloride, an integral part of producing high-purity silicon. Furthermore, A-SiC plays an essential role in producing refractory products like kiln furniture and bricks as well as electric heating elements and high performance car braking systems – it even creates special shapes such as crucibles for iron foundries! In machining applications requiring high hardness and durability, black silicon carbide stands in great stead;

Friability

Black silicon carbide (BSC) is a hard, angular abrasive material commonly found in abrasive wheels, slurry tanks, refractories and ceramic industries. Unique to BSC is that it can be recycled repeatedly by blasting or grinding as its composition gradually breaks down to reveal sharp new edges with each use, creating an “working blend” of various particle sizes for surface cleaning/polishing applications. Harder than aluminum oxide but more friable than brown fused alumina (AO).

Green silicon carbide is far tougher than its green counterpart, making it suitable for use with materials with lower tensile strengths such as glass, stone, refractory ceramics and nonferrous metals. Furthermore, it can tolerate temperatures of up to 1900 C without suffering damage.

Black silicon carbide abrasive wheels can cut easily through glass, plastic and medium-density fiberboard materials; however, their resilience does not match that of aluminum oxide-based products and won’t withstand as much pressure. As such, these wheels are often used to cut rough, coarse surfaces before being polished using finer-grit products like sandpaper or alumina-based products for finishing work.

Black silicon carbide’s thermal conductivity makes it an ideal material for use in refractory applications, with its low thermal expansion rate and resistance to corrosion making it suitable for lining furnace walls or kilns, as well as being perfect for ceramic applications that must withstand high temperatures.

Black silicon carbide’s exceptional thermal stability makes it a suitable material for making solar panels. Its low thermal expansion rate helps dissipate heat efficiently from panels, and its wide temperature tolerance range makes this material perfect for producing solar cells.

Black Silicon Carbide grains are created through a high-temperature process using silica sand and petroleum coke as carbon sources, yielding a product with higher purity than Green Silicon Carbide. GNPGraystar offers both macro and micro grits of this material for use in applications including refractory materials, precision ceramics, blasting applications, lapping applications, bonding/coating of abrasives as well as safety flooring applications.

Corrosion Resistance

Silicon carbide’s corrosion resistance is a crucial feature for numerous industrial applications. Corrosion degrades materials over time by creating surface flaws and increasing their population; this reduced strength reduces resistance against mechanical stress and increases the likelihood that cracks form when subjected to tension loads.

Black silicon carbide has an excellent corrosion-resistance property, making it a superior material choice in harsh chemical environments such as heat exchangers. Since it remains insoluble with water, alcohol, and most acids it makes an excellent material to withstand any adverse conditions or chemicals that come its way.

Black silicon carbide stands out as an ideal material to use for its corrosion-resistance as well as its temperature tolerance, making it suitable for applications involving high temperatures such as refractory materials in metal foundries to make kiln furniture, bricks, electric heating elements and special shapes. Furthermore, its low thermal expansion and high density ensure these refractory materials retain their shapes even at extremely high temperatures.

Black silicon carbide stands out among its peers with both superior temperature resistance and outstanding abrasion and wear characteristics, due to its hexagonal crystal structure that grants it high hardness and stiff modulus of elasticity properties. These characteristics make black silicon carbide ideal for ballistic protection as its properties allow it to halt projectile penetration with lower weight than comparable armor materials allowing increased vehicle performance and range.

Black silicon carbide can be produced through various techniques, including pressure blasting, lapping and the application of bonded and coated abrasives. Once produced, it can be ground into various particle sizes from macrogrits up to micro-grits and powders depending on its use in application. At GNPGraystar’s black silicon carbide we produce premium quality products suited for applications including abrasives as well as refractories and precision ceramics due to its exceptional hardness, sharp cutting edges and superior corrosion resistance properties.

Thermal Conductivity

Silicon carbide is one of the hardest materials on Earth, trailing only diamond and boron carbide in terms of hardness. Due to its combination of hardness and structural integrity, silicon carbide has proven itself as an exceptionally durable material that resists wear while withstanding extreme environmental conditions – an ideal material for coatings, cutting tools and abrasives as well as its high thermal conductivity making black silicon carbide suitable for various refractory and ceramic applications.

Chemical environments and temperature fluctuations don’t pose much of a problem for this material, while its low coefficient of thermal expansion allows it to be used in applications where temperature fluctuation can be an issue. Furthermore, its corrosion-resistance is remarkable while providing good strength at elevated temperatures.

Black silicon carbide is an artificial mineral created through heating silica sand and coke at high temperatures in an electrical resistance furnace, then ground into various grit sizes for use in bonded/coated abrasives, surface treatment processes and grinding applications. Black silicon carbide may also be added as an additive for use in metallurgical applications like kiln furniture and brick production as well as for creating special refractory materials.

GNPGraystar provides black silicon carbide grains and powders, in both macrogrits and microgrits, to meet the demands of various critical applications, such as pressure blasting, lapping, bonded and coated abrasives, as well as refractory materials and precision ceramics. In particular, its metallurgical grade black silicon carbide can be found used for steel-making and refractory materials because of its heat resistance, small size, light weight, high strength as well as energy-saving benefits.

Black silicon carbide abrasives (SiC) are widely used for general abrasive applications in bonded abrasive tools, grinding nonferrous metals and finishing tough and hard materials. SiC has lower hardness and abrasive capacity than diamond or boron carbide but makes an effective replacement when processing cost is of importance. In addition to using SiC as an abrasive, deoxidizers in steelmaking processes as well as creating advanced refractory materials which have superior heat-resistance, small size, light weight strength with great energy-saving potential.