Primary Applications
Aluminum alloys, ferrosilicon and steelmaking, silicones, semiconductors, solar cells
Mining Significance
Silicon is produced from high-silica feedstocks, principally quartz and quartzite, rather than mined as native elemental silicon. Silica is reduced with carbon in submerged-arc furnaces to produce ferrosilicon or silicon metal, with further purification required for semiconductor and solar-grade polysilicon. Feedstock purity, energy intensity, and impurity control are therefore central to silicon production economics.
