A Brief History of Silicon Discovery

In 1787, Lavoisier first discovered silicon in rocks. [1]

In 1800, David mistook it for a compound. [1]

In 1811, Gai-Lussac and Tainer (Thenard, Louis Jacques) heated potassium and silicon tetrafluoride to obtain impure amorphous silicon, which was named silicon according to the Latin word silicon (chert). [1]

In 1811, Gay-Lussac and Thenard reacted with tetrafluoride of silicon (silicon) and alkaline earth metals, and found that a reddish-brown compound (possibly amorphous silicon containing impurities) was formed during the reaction.

Silicon was first discovered as an element by Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1823, and amorphous silicon was refined a year later in much the same way that Guy-Lussac used. He then purifies the elemental silicon by repeated cleaning.

In 1823, Berzelius took the powder of silicon oxide (silicon) and added iron and carbon mixture at high temperature to obtain silicon (silicon) iron. But in order to extract pure silicon (silicon), he used a compound of silicon (silicon)-fluorine-calcium, and the solid obtained after dry burning was decomposed with water to obtain pure silicon (silicon).

The credit for the discovery of silicon belongs to the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius, in Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) in 1824, who obtained silicon by heating potassium and potassium fluorosilicates. This product was contaminated with potassium silicate, but when he stirred it in water, it reacted with it, so he got a relatively pure silicon powder.

In 1824, Jons Jacob Berzelius used the same method, but after repeated washing to remove the fluorosilicic acid, pure amorphous silicon was obtained. [1]

Crystalline silicon was not extracted until 1854. The Latin word for silicon (silicon) is silicium, which means "hard stone".

In 1854, H.S.C. Deville made crystalline silicon for the first time. [1]

The origin of the name of silicon: English silicon, from Latin silex, silicis, meaning flint (flint). In the early days of the Republic of China, scholars originally translated this element as "silicon" and made it read as "xi" (the word "silicon" is actually a variant of the word "Chop", read huo). However, in the time and space at that time, because the pinyin scheme has not yet been popularized, it is generally misread as gui. Since the translated words for chemical elements are mostly transliterated in addition to the original Chinese names, the Chemical Society noticed this problem, so they created the word "silicon" to avoid misinterpretation. Taiwan still uses the word "silicon" to this day. In mainland China, in February 1953, the Chinese Academy of Sciences held a nationwide symposium on the naming of chemical substances. Some scholars adopted and announced that "silicon" was easily confused with the other chemical elements "tin" and "selenium". Changed back to the original name "silicon" and read "gui", but did not realize that the word "silicon" should also be pronounced with xi. Interestingly, words such as silicosis and silicon steel sheet still use the word silicon. In Hong Kong, both uses are available, but "silicon" is more common.