US2266122A - Silicon alloy - Google Patents

Description

Patented Dec. 16, 1941 SILICON ALLOY Augustus B. Kinzel, Douglaston, N. Y., assig'nor t, Electro Metallurgical Company, a corporation of West Virginia No Drawing. Application January 19, 19.40, Se-

giglg No. 314,575. In Great Britain April 15,

2 Claims.

This invention comprises improvements in silicon alloys and in particular silicon alloys of the class containing calcium.

Silicon-calcium alloys have long been used in metallurgical operations, for instance as deoxi- 'dizers and .degassifiers of molten steel and as graphitizers of cast iron. They have also been used in explosives, for instance in pyrotechnics.

Such alloys customarily contain about 15% to 40% calcium (part of the calcium being sometimes replaced by aluminum or manganese) and the remainder silicon except for incidental im- I purities such as iron. The silicon content is most usually between 50% and'65%.

Anobject of this invention is to provide an alloy, of the kind described above, which is cheaper to manufacture and which has anincreased field of utility than previously known alloys oi thiskind.

7 Another object is to provide a novel process formaking alloys of the kind described above.

I have now found that a partial substitution of calcium-by barium in such alloys provides certain advantages not to be expected from such substitution. =-A silicon-calcium barlum alloy containing 1 part of barium to 3 parts of calcium -is an example within this invention. It is premeans, great losses of alloys by volatilization. On the contrary, the silicon-calcium-barium alloys (with or without moderate proportions of aluminum or manganese or both) are dense enough to permit the melter to cover them with a protective slag which minimizes losses by volatilization.

Other advantages are that the silicon-calciumbarium alloys are more effective, volumefor volume and in some instances even pound for pound, than the silicon-calcium alloys of the same alkaline earth metal percentage, in metallurgical uses and in other uses such as in'explosives.

The alloy of the invention may be made by melting its ingredients under a suitable slag, for instance an alkaline earth metal silicate; or by reducing under a suitable slag a mixture of silica 'with the oxides (and/or carbonates) of calcium and barium, the reducing agent ,being carbon or aluminum; or-by reducing under a suitable islag a mixture of silica and barium oxide or carbonate,

metaland prevents excessive losses by volatilizatheretore impossible prevent, by ordinary "the ratio 'of barium to calcium being within the range of 1:3to3:1.

.2. Alloy as claimed in claim 1, in which the a silicon content is between 50% and 65%,

AUGUSTUS B. KENZEL. v