Achievement of high purity silicon carbide from pot-scrap
FIVEN is a worldwide leading producer of silicon carbide powders with production sites in both Europe and America and with an R&D team in Lillesand, Norway.
Thanks to a growing demand for high purity silicon carbide for the electronics and semiconductor industry, FIVEN has developed a production route for high purity silicon carbide using the traditional Acheson process (more details).
In ICARUS, FIVEN is working on the demonstration of the substitution of quartz with pot-scrap to produce high purity silicon carbide, as details in our prior article.
FIVEN has performed several trials using pot-scrap and the results are mostly positive. In general, pot-scrap may give a higher furnace yield and lead to a lower energy consumption in an Acheson furnace. The silicon-contaminants in pot-scrap and their high chemical potential energy may have attributed to these findings. After several steps of processing and purification, a high purity silicon carbide was achieved from pot-scrap. However, difficult-to-remove impurities such as boron, aluminium, and titanium are a cause of concern and may limit the use of pot-scrap to produce high purity silicon carbide for the semi-conductor industry. Next steps will cover the exploration of several industrial sized tests using pot-scrap.