TY - JOUR ID - TI - Reduction of Iraqi Sand to Produce Silicon with High Purity AU - Sami I. J. Al-rubaiey, AU - Zahraa M. Abd Ali PY - 2020 VL - 13 IS - 1 SP - 98 EP - 105 JO - DIYALA JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCES مجلة ديالى للعلوم الهندسية SN - 19998716 26166909 AB - This study deals with extraction of silicon from Iraqisand. The sand was supplied by State Company forMining Industries from Um-Erdhuma Formation in AnbarProvince. It is found that Iraqi sand has 98% of silica(SiO₂).Pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy processeswere applied for extraction of silicon by reduction andleaching respectively. Reduction was carried out in analumina crucible by using magnesium powder withparticle size of 75μm as reducing agent under argon gas.Several parameters were studied to determine the bestresults that affected the extraction of silicon. Theseparameters involved the reduction temperatures(750,850,950) ̊C and ratio of Mg/SiO₂ (2:1, 2.5:1,3:1).The best conditions for the reduction of Iraqi sand toproduce silicon were, at 850 ̊C, 2:1 Mg/SiO₂ with 99.3%purity and at 950 ̊C, 3:1 Mg/SiO₂ with 99.2 %purity.Leaching processes were done for purification ofproduced silicon by using 4:1 volume ratio of 4M HCland 4M CHᴈCOOH respectively for one hour at 70 ̊C.Additional purification step was done by using H₂SO₄acid, which was diluted by 1:4 ratio for three hours at100 ̊C.

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