The bricks, tiles, sand, cement, and glass used for building houses, the porcelain bowls and cups for eating and drinking, and the sanitary ware in the washroom all look completely different, but in fact the main components are all silicon compounds. Although people used silicon compound clay to make pottery in ancient times. But it was not until 1823 that the Swedish chemist Bezelius separated silicon for the first time and burned silicon in oxygen to form silicon dioxide, confirming silicon as an element. China used to call it silicon. Because silicon and tin have the same sound and it is difficult to distinguish it, silicon was renamed silicon in 1953. Silicon is a non-metal element and its chemical symbol is Si. It is the main element that constitutes minerals and rocks. In nature, silicon has no free state, and it exists in compounds. Silicon compounds are mainly silicon dioxide (silica) and silicate. For example, granite is composed of a mixture of quartz, feldspar, and mica. Quartz is a form of silica, and feldspar and mica are silicates. Sand and sandstone are variants of impure silica and are the products of weathering natural silicate rocks. Silicon accounts for about 27.72% of the total weight of the earth's crust, and its abundance is second only to oxygen.
