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S: (last access: 12 July 2016)
N: 1. coined 1863 in German from silico-, comb. form indicating the presence of silicon (onmetallic element, 1817, coined by British chemist Thomas Thomson from silica (silicon dioxide), from which it was isolated), + -one (chemical suffix, from Greek -one, female patronymic -as in anemone, “daughter of the wind,” from anemos-; in chemical use denoting a “weaker” derivative; its use in forming acetone (1830s) gave rise to the specialized chemical sense).
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4. People get confused about the differences between silicon, silicate, silica and even silicone.
- Silicon: It is a chemical element, one of the 97 natural building blocks from which our minerals are formed.
- Silica and silicate: Silica is a bit trickier concept. It refers the combination of silicon plus oxygen. The mineral quartz is silica. But so are the minerals tridymite, coesite, cristobalite and stishovite which are mineral forms of silica that are stable at high temperatures and pressures. All these minerals are also silicates. In other words, quartz is a silicate made of pure silica. But feldspars contain sodium, aluminum, potassium and calcium in addition to silicon and oxygen. Thus feldspars are silicates but they aren’t pure silica. Silicon links up with oxygen (which makes up 55% of the earth’s crust) to form the most common suite of minerals, called the silicates. Quartz, feldspars, olivine, micas, thomsonite, jadeite, and prehnite are all silicates. There is so much oxygen around that pure native silicon is almost never found naturally.
- Silicone: Its a synthetic polymer of silicon with carbon and oxygen that could be in solid, liquid or gel form. It has all kinds of medical uses, such as in antacids, artificial joints, pacemakers and implants of various notoriety, but is not, as far as anyone knows, found in rocks.
S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=silicone (last access: ). 2. (last access: 12 July 2016). 3. (last access: 12 July 2016). 4. https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/1793/11591/1/Silicon.pdf (last access: 12 July 2016).
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