Silicon exists in nature in many dioxide forms, making compounds with oxygen, phosphorus, magnesium, and others. About 97% of Earth's crust is made of rocks and comprises silicon and oxygen compounds.

It occurs in combined form in nature as silicon dioxide which is commonly known as silica. Silicon is the second most abundant electropositive element which makes up 27.7% of the Earth's crust by mass. Silicon is, for the most part, unreactive. Silicon is a hard yet breakable crystalline solid, and it has a bluish-grey metallic lustre, and also Silicon is tetravalent, that is to say, its valency is 4, it is also a semiconductor. Electronic configuration of silicon is (Ne) 3s 2 3p 2. Silicon used in electronics acts as metals, while the glass which is a silicon compound has non-metallic qualities. Silicon is metallic, one of the seven elements which have both the characteristics of non-metal and metal depending upon the other element to which it combines. Carbon is above it, while the elements like germanium, tin, lead, and flerovium are below it. Silicon is a member of the carbon family and is a non-metallic chemical element, having atomic number 14, and belongs to group 14, period 3 in the p-block of the periodic table. The melting point is surpassed by only boron out of all the metalloids and nonmetals. Silicates, which contain silicon and oxygen, are formed by the oxides form of the silicon. And it was because of the fact that silicon has a high chemical affinity to oxygen. Silicon was not characterized in its pure form until the year 1824 when Jons Jakob Berzelius first managed to do so.

Silicon element