Chemical Engineering

Synthetic diamond, man-made diamond that is usually produced by subjecting graphite to very high temperatures and pressures. Synthetic diamond resembles natural…

Fracture, in mineralogy, appearance of a surface broken in directions other than along cleavage planes. There…

Cleavage, tendency of a crystalline substance to split into fragments bounded by plane surfaces. Although cleavage surfaces…

Intelligent design (ID), argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or…

Intermetallic compound, any of a class of substances composed of definite proportions of two or…

Silicon carbide, exceedingly hard, synthetically produced crystalline compound of silicon and carbon. Its chemical formula is SiC. Since the late…

Ductility, Capacity of a material to deform permanently (e.g., stretch, bend, or spread) in response…

Phosphorus (P), nonmetallic chemical element of the nitrogen family (Group 15 [Va] of the periodic table) that at room temperature…

(Group 14 [IVa] of the periodic table). Silicon makes up 27.7 percent of Earth’s crust; it…

Hot metal (blast-furnace iron) Most blast furnaces are linked to a basic oxygen steel plant, for which the…