Oxygen and Silicon - Comparison - Properties

This article contains comparison of key thermal and atomic properties of oxygen and silicon, two comparable chemical elements from the periodic table. It also contains basic descriptions and applications of both elements. Oxygen vs Silicon.

oxygen and silicon - comparison

Compare oxygen with another element

Compare silicon with another element

Oxygen and Silicon – About Elements

Oxygen

Oxygen is a colourless, odourless reactive gas, the chemical element of atomic number 8 and the life-supporting component of the air. It is a member of the chalcogen group on the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium.

Silicon

Silicon is a hard and brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, it is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor.

Oxygen in Periodic Table

Silicon in Periodic Table

Source: www.luciteria.com

Oxygen and Silicon – Applications

Oxygen

Common uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight and diving. Smelting of iron ore into steel consumes 55% of commercially produced oxygen. In this process, oxygen is injected through a high-pressure lance into molten iron, which removes sulfur impurities and excess carbon as the respective oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Uptake of oxygen from the air is the essential purpose of respiration, so oxygen supplementation is used in medicine. Treatment not only increases oxygen levels in the patient’s blood, but has the secondary effect of decreasing resistance to blood flow in many types of diseased lungs, easing work load on the heart.

Silicon

Most silicon is used industrially without being purified, and indeed, often with comparatively little processing from its natural form. Silicon is a vital ingredient in aluminum, steel, and iron alloys. It is added as a fluxing agent for copper alloys. In the form of clay and sand, it is used to manufacture bricks and concrete; it is a valuable refractory material for high-temperature work, for example, molding sands for castings in foundry applications. Silica is used to make fire brick, a type of ceramic. Silicate minerals are also in whiteware ceramics, an important class of products usually containing various types of fired clay minerals (natural aluminium phyllosilicates). An example is porcelain, which is based on the silicate mineral kaolinite. Traditional glass (silica-based soda-lime glass) also functions in many of the same ways, and also is used for windows and containers. Hyperpure silicon metal and doped hyperpure silicon (doping with boron, phosphorous, gallium, or arsenic) are used in solar cells, transistors and semiconductors.

Oxygen and Silicon – Comparison in Table

Element	Oxygen	Silicon
Density	0.00125 g/cm3	2.33 g/cm3
Ultimate Tensile Strength	N/A	170 MPa
Yield Strength	N/A	165 MPa
Young’s Modulus of Elasticity	N/A	150 GPa
Mohs Scale	N/A	7
Brinell Hardness	N/A	2300 MPa
Vickers Hardness	N/A	N/A
Melting Point	-209.9 °C	1410 °C
Boiling Point	-195.8 °C	3265 °C
Thermal Conductivity	0.02598 W/mK	148 W/mK
Thermal Expansion Coefficient	N/A	2.6 µm/mK
Specific Heat	1.04 J/g K	0.71 J/g K
Heat of Fusion	(N2) 0.7204 kJ/mol	50.55 kJ/mol
Heat of Vaporization	(N2) 5.56 kJ/mol	384.22 kJ/mol