Silicon Carbide Properties

When it comes to meeting high standards, Washington Mills delivers.  Our production process has the unmatched capabilities of producing custom and standard chemical and physical properties that meet or exceed your specifications.  We invite you to explore our standard properties and imagine how we can help customize them to fit your needs.

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

Silicon carbide will not dissolve in acids or in bases but is easily attacked by alkaline melts and by most metal and metal oxide melts. For practical applications the temperature limits are 1.500 °C in an inert gas or reducing atmosphere. The impurities in technical silicon carbide primarily consist of free C and SiO2 in varying amounts depending on the type of product. In addition, some Si and Fe and small quantities of Al and Ca occur. Mol weight: 40.096. Pure SiC is composed of 29.95 % C and 70.05 % Si.

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

Extreme hardness, high thermal conductivity and low linear thermal expansion are some of the properties that make silicon carbide an outstanding material in its main areas of usage. The following physical data can be considered as guidelines for silicon carbide:

HARDNESS

Mohs scale

Between 9 and 10

Knoop scale

25.000–30.000 N/mm2

THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY

20 °C

0.41 W/cm °C

1000 °C

0.21 W/cm °C

LINEAR THERMAL EXPANSION

20–1000 °C

5.1 . 10-6/ °C

20–2000 °C

5.8 . 10-6/ °C

SPECIFIC HEAT

25 °C

0.67 J/g °C

1000 °C

1.26 J/g °C

Specific density

3.21 g/cm3

Bulk density

0.5–1.7 g/cm3

MELTING POINT

Silicon carbide does not melt, but dissociation starts at about 2.300 °C

Total Process Control

Washington Mills manufactures silicon carbide, CARBOREX, in precision controlled furnaces offering quality assurance from start to finish. 

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