Making Silicon from Sand

In a chemical reaction straight out of Harry Potter, you can turn dirt into the building block of every computer

By Theodore Gray Posted 10.17.2005 at 1:00 am 5 Comments

Chemically speaking, several things happen when the powder hits the acid. Any leftover magnesium powder reacts with the acid to produce hydrogen gas. The magnesium silicide reacts with the acid to produce silane gas, which spontaneously combusts on contact with air, giving off little pops that ignite the
nearby swirls of hydrogen gas.

If there is still some magnesium powder floating in the air, it catches fire too, creating a bright flash and a puff of white smoke. You get three forms of fire in one, and the powder falling to the bottom of the bowl is purified elemental silicon. Spells are fantasy, but potions are real, and this is a great one.

Click to see a reactive moment. Magnesium, hydrogen and silane burn off while the purified silicon falls to the bottom.

ACHTUNG!

Theodore Gray is trained in lab-safety procedures. If you try this at home, you do so at your own risk. Find more info on Gray's scientific pursuits at periodictabletable.com.

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5 Comments

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Tellysci

04/12/08 at 9:10 pm

im considering doing this experiment and i wanted to know how ou got magnesium

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tech2.0

from houston, texas

04/26/08 at 9:45 am

try unitednucler.com for magnesium ribbon then crush it

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kardelen133 (not verified)

06/04/08 at 2:21 am

Mking silicon

Speeding

Where can I get the blocks?

I agree, this is a evden eve nakliyat very cool experiment. As to how long evden eve the acrylic can hold the image, permanently. If you mean nakliyat how long the lightening flashes, I would imagine until the block is grounded, the flashes would persist.

I would imagine evden eve nakliyat that on could generate a fair amount su deposu of income selling these su deposu Lichtenberg figures.
1 out of 1 people estetik found this comment helpful ankara nakliyat
there are many nakliyat lichtenberg figures estetik on the ice near my ankara nakliyat home and they are not drain holes. They are merely the first places that the sun melts the ice,
evden eve usually caused by something evden eve nakliyat dark at the center which heats up and starts the melting. I have 40mg of pix if pop sci is interested.
Cool and beautiful!
How long could the bock trap the lighting ?
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful
very nice blogs.
thanks.

very nice blogs.
thanks.

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IanSmith

07/15/08 at 6:39 pm

Here's a ready source for the magnesium. Has to ship by ground.

http://www.northstarpyro.com/PYRO_METALS-MAGNESIUM_POWDER_100_200_MESH_1.html

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revtkatt

06/11/09 at 11:15 am

You should also be able to use aluminum
powder for the goldschmidt (thermit) reaction
that obtains the raw Si. Aluminum will also
disappear during the HCl purification.