Deposition of SiC Derived from Desert Sand and Wood Charcoal by Plasma Processing

Abstract

The basic aim of my project was to find a cheaper source of silicon carbide to use as coating on metal plates to increase their wear resistant properties. Silicon carbide has very high wear resistant properties so is ideal for coating on metal surface using plasma processing.
The plasma process uses temperature of the order of 5000k and higher. So our target was to utilize this high temperature to fire a reaction between silica(sio2) and carbon to form silicon carbide. For silica we used sand and for carbon we used wood charcoal. Though the reaction was theoretically possible but at such high temperature we couldn’t be sure whether the chemical kinetics would follow the expected path. There was the risk of carbon behaving as reducing agent and converting alumina present in sand to aluminium.So we decided to perform the experiment in Plasma Laboratory at the Laser and Plasma
Technology Division, BARC so that the project does not just remain a theory.