Abstract
The influence of a liquid medium duringa wet-milling process in the grinding and oxidation of silicon powder was investigated. Distilled water, dehydrated ethanol and diethylene glycol were used as the liquid media. The applied grinding times were 0.5, 3, and 12 h. Ground silicon powder samples were characterized by means of aparticle size analysis, scanning electron microscopy(SEM), x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), FT-IR spectroscopy and by a chemical composition analysis. From the results of the characterization process, we found that diethylene glycol is the most efficient liquid medium when silicon powder is ground using a wet-milling process. The FT-IR results show that the Si-O band intensity in an unground silicon powder is quite strongbecause oxygen becomes incorporated with silicon to form $SiO_2$ in air. By applying deionized water as a liquid medium for the grinding of silicon, the $SiO_2$ content increased from 4.12% to 31.7%. However, in the cases of dehydrated ethanol and diethylene glycol, it was found that the $SiO_2$ contents after grinding only changed insignificantly, from 4.12% to 5.91% and 5.28%, respectively.
