What is silicon? Detailed answer

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What is silicon? Detailed answer

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What is silicon?

The Earth's crust - the soil that people walk on and live on - is made up to a large extent of silicon. Silicon is the second most abundant chemical element on Earth, but it is never found in its free state. This means that it is always connected to one or more other elements.

Silicon is the main element in all rocks, with the exception of one variety - carbonates. Clay, for example, contains an average of 50 percent silicon, and you can be sure that most of the stones you see have the same amount of silicon.

Silicon has been found on stars and even in plants. The largest amount of silicon in the world is found in silica, which is made up of oxygen and silicon. Quartz, jasper, opal, sand are all varieties of silica. In ancient times, people used silica to make glass. Silicon exists in two forms: crystalline and powdered.

Pure silicon is not widely used, so it is rarely produced. But various silicon compounds are used in many industries. When sand is combined with coke, silicon carbide is formed, which is usually called carborundum. It is an extremely hard substance and is used for grinding and polishing metals.

Silicon is also added to steel because it gives steel many useful qualities. Steel can contain from 2 to 6% silicon. When steel is used in the manufacture of chemical equipment, it contains 6% silicon, which makes it much more resistant to corrosion than any other steel. When steel contains 2% silicon, it becomes indispensable for electrical equipment, since in this case less energy is required to magnetize the steel.

Silicon compounds are also widely used in the chemical industry for a variety of needs.

Author: Likum A.

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The construction of repeater antennas is a costly, cumbersome and time-consuming process. Multi-meter iron trusses are installed on the foundation - all this requires lengthy preparation and is not justified as a temporary solution. To get away from the process of building antennas, Mitsubishi Electric proposed and tested an interesting method in practice. A column of sea water was used as a transceiver antenna. Salt sea water is a conductor for current. Something, but there is more than enough sea water around Japan.

Mitsubishi has developed a repeater design that feeds a high-frequency signal into the water jet. A channel is also created for receiving a signal coming from the water column. The development was named "Sea Aerial". The nozzles of the jet pump are isolated, and the high-frequency current does not go beyond the complex with the transmitter. Such a complex can be towed by a boat to a given point and deployed in a matter of minutes. The system requires only sea water to operate.

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