What is the difference between silicon and silicon dioxide? 1. Silica: high temperature resistant chemical instruments, optical fibers.

Silica is a raw material for the manufacture of glass, quartz glass, water glass, optical fiber, important components of the electronic industry, optical instruments, handicrafts and refractory materials, and is an important material for scientific research.

2. Silicon: chips, integrated circuits, semiconductor devices, solar cells.

Silicon metal is mainly used for the production of organic silicon, the preparation of high-purity semiconductor materials, and the preparation of alloys for special purposes.

In the silicon dioxide crystal, the silicon atom is located in the center of the regular tetrahedron, and the four oxygen atoms are located at the four corners of the regular tetrahedron. Many such tetrahedra are connected by the oxygen atoms at the corners. The two tetrahedra are in common, ie each oxygen atom is bound to two silicon atoms.

The simplest formula of silicon dioxide is SiO₂, but SiO₂ does not represent a simple molecule (only the ratio of the number of atoms of silicon and oxygen in the silicon dioxide crystal). Pure natural silica crystal is a hard, brittle, insoluble, colorless and transparent solid.

Except for fluorine gas and hydrofluoric acid, silica does not react with halogens, hydrogen halides and inorganic acids, but is soluble in hot concentrated alkali, molten strong alkali or sodium carbonate. In addition, silica can be reduced by coke, magnesium, etc. at high temperature.

At room temperature, the strong alkali solution and SiO₂ will slowly react to form silicate, so the glass bottle for storing the strong alkali solution cannot use a ground glass stopper (the glass contains SiO₂), otherwise it will generate viscous sodium silicate Na₂SiO₃, which will make the bottle The stopper and the mouth of the bottle are glued together. Since SiO₂ can react with hydrofluoric acid, hydrofluoric acid cannot be stored in glass containers.