It was not until 1823 that Jöns Jakob Berzelius was able to create and analyze it in pure form due to its high chemical affinity for oxygen. Its oxides are anions from the silicate family. Among all metalloids and nonmetals, its melting and boiling temperatures of 1414 °C and 3265 °C, respectively, are second only to boron.
Silicon
is the eighth-most abundant element in the universe
by mass, yet it is extremely rare in the Earth's crust as a pure element. It can be found in cosmic dust, planetoids, and planets in various forms of
silicon
dioxide (silica) or silicates.
Silicate minerals make up more than 90% of the Earth's crust, making silicon the second most abundant element in the crust (approximately
28 percent by mass) behind oxygen. When not previously present,
silicon is a naturally occurring element with a 400-year residence time in the world's oceans.
Natural
silicon-based materials have been used for thousands of years due to the abundance of silicon in the Earth's crust. Various ancient civilizations were familiar with silicon
rock crystals, including the predynastic Egyptians who utilized it for beads and miniature vases, as well as the
ancient Chinese.
The Egyptians, as well as the ancient Phoenicians, have been producing glass containing silica since at least
1500 BC. Natural silicate compounds were also utilized in the construction of early human houses in various forms of mortar.
Antoine Lavoisier hypothesized in 1787 that silica was an oxide of a
fundamental chemical element. Thomas Thomson, a Scottish chemist, gave silicon its current name in
1817. He kept part of Davy's name but added '-on' because he thought silicon, like
boron and carbon, was a nonmetal.
Jöns Jacob Berzelius made amorphous silicon in 1824, employing a procedure similar to
Gay-but Lussac's refining the product to a brown powder by washing it repeatedly. As a result, he is frequently credited with discovering the element. In the same year,
Berzelius became the first to produce silicon tetrachloride, after
Carl Wilhelm Scheele made silicon tetrafluoride by dissolving silica in
hydrofluoric acid in 1771.
