Effect of Pelletizing and Temperature in Silicon Production Using Magnesiothermic Reduction

Porous silicon (Si) has lots of potential applications including anode in lithium-ion batteries, sensor, electronic, or biomedical field. The synthesis of porous Si usually involves the use of expensive precursors with complex methods, having difficulties in the application to scalable process. It is urgent to find a massive production method for the production of porous Si using inexpensive and abundant source. Here, we show that the cheap and abundant rice husk silica (RH-SiO2) can be converted into porous Si via magnesiothermic reduction in a self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) approach. The SHS method is a simple and commercial method by pelletizing the powder reactants. The Si yield and physical properties were investigated varying temperatures in a range from 600 to 900°C and pelletizing pressure from 5 to 30 MPa in order to find the optimum process condition. The hig…