In the beginning of the 20th century, silicon carbide was used as a detector in the first radios. This was followed by electronic applications. It may be that he named the material 'carborundum' by analogy to corundum, which is another very hard substance (9 on the Mohs scale). It is said that Acheson was trying to dissolve carbon in molten corundum (alumina) and discovered the presence of hard, blue-black crystals which he believed to be a compound of carbon and corundum: hence carborundum. In 1900 the company settled with the Electric Smelting and Aluminum Company when a judge's decision gave 'priority broadly' to its founders 'for reducing ores and other substances by the incandescent method'. Acheson also developed the electric batch furnace by which SiC is still made today and formed the Carborundum Company to manufacture bulk SiC, initially for use as an abrasive. Moissan also synthesized SiC by several routes, including dissolution of carbon in molten silicon, melting a mixture of calcium carbide and silica, and by reducing silica with carbon in an electric furnace.ДЄcheson patented the method for making silicon carbide powder on February 28, 1893. The mineral was named moissanite in his honor. In 1893, Ferdinand Henri Moissan discovered the very rare naturally occurring SiC mineral while examining rock samples found in the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona. He called the blue crystals that formed carborundum, believing it to be a new compound of carbon and aluminium, similar to corundum. Acheson was attempting to prepare artificial diamonds when he heated a mixture of clay (aluminium silicate) and powdered coke (carbon) in an iron bowl. Wide-scale production is credited to Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1890.

Albert Colson's heating of silicon under a stream of ethylene (1882).

Paul Schuetzenberger's heating of a mixture of silicon and silica in a graphite crucible (1881).

Robert Sydney Marsden's dissolution of silica in molten silver in a graphite crucible (1881).

Non-systematic, less-recognized and often unverified syntheses of silicon carbide include:

5.9 Nuclear fuel particles and cladding.

Silicio mineral propiedades