Pick a Chemical Industry or Book Chapter - Essay Example

Essay Pick a Chemical Industry or Book Chapter Option E1a Silicon (industries ceramics, polymers, semiconductors) Number Professor Unit of Study Institute Date Option E1a Silicon industries (ceramics, polymers, semiconductors) What final commodities are produced in your chosen area of chemical industry? Do we need them? Silicon is a very useful element because of its relatively inactive nature and tetravalent metalloid characteristics. It is industrially valuable because of its abundant presence in the earth. It is commonly found in sand and dust. It hardly ever occurs in a naturally free state. In industry silicon is most often used as in the state it is found in nature. The majority of silicon found in the nature is used in steel refining and aluminum casting. The highly purified form of silicon is used in integrated circuits. This makes it an essential component of most computers. Modern technology, as we know it today, greatly depends on silicon-based products. The majority of building stone, clays and silica are the silicon products and vastly used in the construction industry. Glass, polymers, silicon-metals and ceramics and semiconductors made from silicon are low cost allow for high quality packaging (Wilamowski & Irwin 145). The final commodities of silicon are absolutely necessary in the modern world because of our immense dependence on this element. If silicon based commodities are short the world economy might collapse. Technology and construction industry cannot survive without silicon-based products. Structural compounds such as silicate minerals or silica, also known as crude silicon dioxide, form the backbone of the construction industry. Portland cement is a crucial and commodity of silicon. It is usually combined with gravel and sand to make concrete. Silicon is also used to make a ceramic called firebrick. Natural aluminium phyllosilicates forms an essential component of the whiteware ceramics. Similarly porcelain is often used in art projects and for domestic purposes. Silica-based soda lime glass or the common glass that is used in homes is also a silicon product. And finally fiberglass, glass fibers and optical fibers (including glassful) are the end products of silicon element that form the backbone in ceramics industry. The majority of industry produced silicon is kept in ferrosilicon alloy form. About 15% of the worlds production of metallurgical grade silicon is used in semiconductors. The element used for this purpose is highly refined and only forms a fraction of the total production. Silicon’s crystalline nature gives it significant electrical and mechanical advantages (Maluf & Williams 13). The monocrystalline silicon form is used in integrated circuits and in terms of leverage (comparing the quantity produced against its usage) the highly refined form is extremely valuable in the electronics industry. What raw materials are used in your chosen area of chemical industry? Are they geographically limited? The raw material used in silicon industry are abundant and available almost anywhere on earth. In fact the silicon element is also present in immense quantities throughout the universe. Silicon is mostly used in raw form in the industries. There are many silicate minerals found in the Earths crust such as mica, pyroxene, feldspar and amphibole. These raw materials can be found in clay and many rocks like sandstone and granite. Pure silicon dioxide occurs as quartz, Jasper, Opal and rock crystals. Ferrosilicon is an iron silicon alloy and is a core element for the production of elemental silicon. Its major use is in the aluminum alloy casting industry. Silicon metal or elemental silicon makes up about 20% of the world’s elemental silicon production. The metallurgical grade silicon is produced by reacting highly pure silicon with wood, coal and charcoal. What form(s) of energy input is (are) needed by your chosen area of chemical industry? The most common energy input for producing semiconductors from silicon is heat energy. Melting silicon compounds is carried out at very high temperatures. The energy input for producing silicon in the industry requires varying heat levels according to the product that the industry is producing. The following table is from Handbook for Cleaning for Semiconductor Manufacturing: Fundamentals (Reinhardt & Reidy 479), which lists energy consumption at different stages of the process; Production stage Electrical energy input per kilogram silicon out Silicon yield (%) quartz + carbon  silicon 13 kWh 90 silicon  trichlorosilane 50 kWh 90 Trichlorosilane  polysilicon 250 kWh 42 Polysilicon  single crystal ingot 250 kWh 50 single crystal ingot  silicon wafer 240 kWh 56 Process chain to produce wafer 2130 kWh 9.5 In simple terms, what chemical or physical processes are used in your chosen area of chemical industry? To get the solar grade silicon the Metallurgical grade silicon is selected as a starting material (Seetharaman 104). Metallurgical grade silicon is prepared by reacting silica with wood, coal, charcoal in an electric arc furnace. Carbon electrodes are used to conduct this process. With a temperature above 1900°C the raw materials undergo the following chemical reaction; SiO2 + 2 C → Si + 2 CO Towards the end the liquid silicon gets collected at the bottom of the furnace. The liquid is then drained and cooled. The product is known as metallurgical grade silicon, which is approximately 98% pure. The electronics industry uses silicon semiconductors. To make those devices the industry needs a highly refined form of silicon. The metallurgical grade silicon is not pure enough to make those devices. A process known as the molten salt electrolysis is used to extract 99.9% pure silicon from silicon compounds and solid silica. This process is highly efficient as there is no carbon dioxide emission and the process can directly give solar grade silicon. The microelectronics industry cannot use the solar grade silicon as the purity is not up to the mark. The industries repeatedly refine the solar grade silicon to achieve a highly purified form to use in microelectronics. The modern purification techniques includes converting silicon into volatile liquids. Trichlorosilane, silicon tetrachloride and gaseous silane are the usual volatile liquids. Through distillation the industries separate compounds and transform them into highly pure silicon. They achieve this through redox reaction or chemical decomposition at very high temperatures. What forms of waste product or environmental pollution arise in your chosen area of chemical industry? In the PV manufacturing the crystalline silicon modules are used and are passed through a purification process. The byproducts are silicon tetrachloride (SiCl4). This byproduct can damage the environment and to reduce the cost and environment protection a closed loop process is used which greatly minimizes the waste (Spellman 88). The idea is to convert, separate and reuse the trichlorosilane from (SiCl4) byproduct. The silicon nitride is an antireflective coating material and is given off as chemical vapor deposition (Spellman 88). In other byproduct called the pyrophoric silane gas is highly ignitable and catches fire when exposed to air. Thin-film amorphous silicon film uses an agent called the nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) for cleaning reactors. C this agent has a global warming potential of 17,000 times greater than carbon dioxide (Spellman 88). However there are other alternatives in use that modify the process for using it that greatly minimizes the harmful environmental effects. For instance a controlled use of NF3 is in effect for specific production in the liquid crystal display industry and the microcrystalline silicon PV industry. Do strict health and safety measures apply in your chosen area of chemical industry? What are the risks? Strict health and safety measures apply in silicon industries. Be it ceramics or semiconductors there are many health risks involved in the processes. The semiconductor industry otherwise known as the high-tech industry is usually identified with rapid changes and intense competition. Therefore the companies face tremendous pressure to produce cost-effective products that challenge environmental laws and the safety of employees. For the production of workers they are isolated from the product being produced as they have to wear special gowns, hair covers and facial masks (Bolmen 26). This is especially practiced in isolated ultraclean wafer fabrication units. The workers are protected from harmful exposures to toxic chemicals and physical agents. Usually the aerospace and nuclear weapons industry provides similar worker exposure controls. Semiconductor wafer fabrication rooms need to be equipped with sophisticated ventilations and chemical gas/air monitoring detection system. Different alarms can be set on the basis of parts per million (ppm) and parts per billion (ppb) thresholds (Bolmen 26). This is to make sure that semiconductor employees are protected from harmful exposures to toxic gases like phosphine, our sign and diborane, which have been commonly used in the wafer fabrication since the industry started manufacturing (Bolmen 26). The industry has also seen many evacuations based on real or suspected leaks of gases or solvents. Modern workshops are usually equipped with high sophisticated ventilation systems specifically designed based on those mistakes. Has the industry had unforseen (or expected) impacts on the environment, communities? The silicon industries have unforeseen impacts on the environment and the communities. The technological industry has almost transform the whole world. With a manufacturing of computers and their widespread use all across the globe it is due to the silicon industry that people in many backward countries of Africa are using cellular and computer-based technology. The cost efficient production of silicon-based products allows them to benefit from this technology. The modern world cannot survive without silicon industry because technology has seeped so much into the lives of people that imagining a life without computers would be very hard. What is the economic scale of your chosen area of chemical industry – worldwide, in USA, in Australia? Semiconductor industries have a huge scale and a global impact. Due to wide ranges of products such as ceramics, polymers and semiconductors it is hard to estimate a collective economic scale of all these subcategories combined together. To give an example what the industry scale is like, the semiconductor industry is a collage of companies involved in fabrication of semiconductor devices. Today it is around it $249 billion industry ("SIA"). According to the iSupply Corporation the USA claims a giant share in the semiconductor industry. The companies such as Intel Corporation, QUALCOMM, Texas Instruments, Broadcom and Micron Technology hold the biggest collective share at the global level from one country (“PC Mag”). In addition, the scale of silicon industry in Australia is huge. For instance the production of the n-type silicon solar cells project alone in Australia is estimated at $10.3 million, which is led by the Australian National University ("ARENA"). What impact has this industry had on the course of history, civilisation and other areas of science? The silicon industry (especially the semiconductors industry) has had an immense impact on history and civilization. It has led to many complicated researches in the field of technology. Microchip and nanotechnology are considered at the forefront of the technological innovation. The science is constantly looking for making better and more efficient machines and energy sources. Silicon industry provides that basic infrastructure to conduct research and apply it to come up with better products. It is due to silicon-based products that the things that were considered science-fiction in the 1980s are now common household items. Does your chosen area of chemical industry operate in Australia? If yes, how big is it? If no, why not? The silicon industry does not simply operate in Australia but it is huge in terms of its economic impact. It is big because silicon-based products are vastly used in computer-based chips and other technologies. Irradiating silicon or a process called the neutron transmutation doping (NTD) alters electronic properties of silicon when phosphorous is introduced which makes it a better conductor of electricity (“ANSTO”). This process is widely used in the electronic components of hybrid cars and fast trains. It is also used in many renewable energy systems like solar and vent farms and for energy transportation which produces the energy losses and increases reliability and efficiency of the devices. As of 2014, Australia is recognized as the country that irradiates the most high quality silicon in the world (“ANSTO”). This form of silicon is in high demand in many Asian and European countries. References "Industry Ready N-type Silicon Solar Cells." ARENA. Australian Government, 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2014. "Australia a World Leader in Silicon Industry." ANSTO. Australian Government, 2014. Web. 23 Dec. 2014. Bolmen, Richard, R. Semiconductor Safety Handbook: Safety and Health in the Semiconductor Industry. NJ: Noyes Publications. 1998. Print. Poeter, Damon. "IHS: Memory Makers Lead 2013 Semiconductor Rebound." PCMAG. IHS Technology, 2014. Web. 23 Dec. 2014. Maluf, Nadim and Kirt Williams. An Introduction to Microelectromechanical Systems Engineering. Boston: Artech House, 2004. Print. Reinhardt, Karen A., and Richard F. Reidy. Handbook of Cleaning for Semiconductor Manufacturing: Fundamentals and Applications. Salem, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print. Seetharaman, Seshadri. Fundamentals of Metallurgy. Cambridge: Woodhead Pub. and Maney Pub. on Behalf of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, 2005. Print. "Semiconductor Industry Association Factsheet." SIA. US Semiconductor Industry, 2014. Web. 23 Dec. 2014. Spellman, Frank, R. Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy. CRC Press. 2014. Print. Wilamowski, Bogdan M., and J. David Irwin. The Industrial Electronics Handbook. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 2011. Print. Read More