Silicon, a critical raw materialA growing number of countries are adding silicon on their list of critical material.
Silicon a Potential Clean Energy Game Changer May 2022
Australia recently joined a number of leading nations in naming silicon as a critical mineral. Most people would relate silicon to computer chips and the famous IT hub Silicon Valley in California.
But what is silicon metal and why is it critical to our clean energy future?
Scientists describe silicon as neither metal nor non-metal and have labelled it as a metalloid, an element that falls somewhere between the two.
According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, silicon is the seventh-most abundant element in the universe and the second-most abundant element on the planet, after oxygen. About 25% of the Earth’s crust is silicon.
Besides computer chips, silicon has many uses – and it is its relationship to solar energy panels and, more recently, lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) that have seen it elevated to critical-mineral status.
According to the Critical Raw Materials Alliance, silicon metal is absolutely necessary to the production of aluminium and chemical products since it provides them with essential properties. A wide range of modern technologies depend on this material.
Notably, the alliance says silicon metal cannot be substituted and there is no recycling of (pure) silicon.
The economic importance of silicon has been demonstrated in the aluminium and chemical sectors, but also as essential material in the electronics and solar industries, and is garnering promising input in the battery application to increase energy storage capacity and hence battery duration. The absence of substitutes for the wide range of end-uses only increases the critical character of this material.
Growth in the silicon metal market is expected to continue in the coming years, led by increased demand from regular aluminium and chemical applications, a fast-growing solar industry, and the promising battery market demand.
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