Silicon Carbide Powders for High Strength Ceramics

Silicon Carbide Powder is widely used as an abrasive material in applications for honing, lapping, and polishing metal and ceramic components. Additionally, this powder boasts several industrial applications due to its strength, thermal conductivity, and corrosion resistance properties.

Silicon carbide can be created through two processes – reaction bonding and sintering. Each method significantly impacts the final microstructure of the material.

Hardness

Silicon Carbide (SiC) is one of the hardest substances found in nature, second only to diamond and boron carbide. Due to its hardness, SiC offers excellent resistance against wear and abrasion as well as corrosion, making it ideally suited for industrial applications that involve high temperature/voltage environments.

SiC is a nonoxide ceramic material with exceptional mechanical properties, including very high bending strength at room temperature, superior oxidation resistance, low coefficient of friction and acid/alkali solvent resistance – qualities which make it suitable for applications such as aerospace, machine industry and electronics.

Premasol offers SiC in various micron sizes with both oil- and water-based carriers to meet your application needs. SiC is produced by heating silica sand with carbon at very high temperatures to create silicon carbide crystals; green is typically associated with higher purity levels while black denotes impurity levels, making this material suitable for many demanding applications.

Toughness

Silicon carbide is an extremely hard and tough material, capable of withstanding heavy loads and impacts while remaining highly abrasion resistant and resisting erosion – ideal properties for applications in harsh environments like petrochemical processing or flue gas desulphurisation plants.

Chemically speaking, silicon carbide is inert and resistant to virtually all organic and inorganic acids such as phosphoric, sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, while also being resistant to corrosion-resistance in oxidising conditions. Furthermore, its excellent corrosion-resistance makes it suitable for components exposed to high temperatures or rapid temperature changes such as burner nozzles/jet tubes/mechanical seal parts.

Thermal Conductivity

Silicon Carbide (SiC) is an impregnated non-oxide ceramic with high hardness and strength. Additionally, its chemical resistance makes it highly chemical resistant as well as semi-conductive – qualities which have made SiC an invaluable material used extensively for mechanical seals, pump parts and semiconductor processing equipment.

Sintered SiC ceramics have low thermal expansion and excellent mechanical properties, making them the ideal material for high temperature kilns. They can withstand temperatures up to 1600oC while remaining resilient against thermal shock.

Reaction Bonded Silicon Carbide (RB SiC, often referred to as Calsic RB) offers an economical alternative to sintered SiC in applications where corrosion or wear resistance is not an essential consideration. Produced by pre-mixing silica with carbon prior to reaction sintering, RB SiC provides many of the same advantages at a much lower cost than sintered ceramic material.

Corrosion Resistance

Silicon carbide powder possesses exceptional chemical stability, strength and thermal expansion resistance at very high temperatures, making it suitable for industrial ceramic applications such as kiln shelves and liners. Furthermore, silicon carbide can also be used as an abrasive.

Silicon carbide is only rivaled by diamond and cubic boron nitride as the hardest materials known. It is an exceptionally hard material used in applications ranging from abrasives and wear-resistent agents, advanced refractories and fine ceramics, cutting tools and heat recovery systems.

In metallurgical applications, it’s used for cutting and grinding hard materials like metals, stone, refractories and cast iron. Furthermore, its combination of hardness, strength, thermal conductivity and corrosion resistance make it an ideal abrasive material.