Prof. Bianconi Patents a Cheap, Energy Efficient Way to Make Ceramic Films

A patent has been issued to University of Massachusetts Amherst Chemistry Professor Patricia Bianconi for making the industrial ceramic called silicon carbide, commercially known as Carborundum.  Prof. Bianconi’s new process is a cheaper and more energy efficient means of producing the material, and it allows carborundum to be more easily shaped into usable products. Carborundum is a material widely used in semiconductors, industrial abrasives, and as a diamond substitute.

Prof. Bianconi with graduate students Michael Pitcher and Scott Joray used new polymers called polysilynes to make the ceramic films.  These polymers were synthesized with a specially designed structure that gives them the ability to decompose, upon heating, to a solid, hard ceramic film.  The polymer backbone is entirely composed of silicon, and each silicon atom has a carbon-based side chain.  When heated under an inert gas such as argon, carbon atoms from the side chain react with the silicon in the polymer backbone, and produce silicon carbide films. 

(September 2007)