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Silicon carbide has a nice sparkly black appearance in mesh sizes around 60 mesh or coarser. The most common use for silicon carbide is for abrasives in every form and every mesh size that exists. It and aluminum oxide are the two major abrasives used world wide. Aluminum oxide has a sharper profile, but silicon carbide is harder (and also more expensive). Silicon carbide is also known as carborundum.
While rare on Earth, silicon carbide is remarkably common in space. It is a common form of stardust found around carbon-rich stars, and examples of this stardust have been found in pristine condition in primitive (unaltered) meteorites. According to science, stardust is made of particles remaining from a supernova explosion. Though we could wrongfully believe, Stars won't shine forever. Like ourselves, and every other living being, the stars are born, they live, and they die. The silicon carbide found in space and in meteorites is almost exclusively the beta-polymorph. "Polymorph" referring to the same chemical name (SiC, silicon carbide) but having a different crystal arrangement that has differing properties with different polymorphs. SiC is special because of the huge number of polymorphs that exist, around 250 crystal forms (there is also an amorphous non-crystalline form). The polymorphism of SiC is exhibited by a large family of similar crystalline forms called polytypes. They are variations of the same polymorph that are identical in two dimensions and differ in the third dimension. The polymorph "alpha SiC" is the most common SiC (used in abrasives, etc). It has a hexagonal crystal form and is made at temps above 1700 C (3092 F). The "beta SiC" has a cubic crystal form (similar to diamond) and is made at temps below 1700 C. It is one of the polymorphs of the "synthetic" moissanite.
There are a lot more very interesting things being done with SiC, including "graphene", astronomical mirrors, thin filament pyrometry, composite materials, synthetic moissanite (a gemstone), steelmaking, and Quantum physics.
The simplest process to manufacture silicon carbide is to combine silica sand and carbon in an Acheson graphite electric resistance furnace at a high temperature, between 1,600 °C (2,910 °F) and 2,500 °C (4,530 °F).
SiC occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite . Naturally occurring moissanite is found in only minute quantities in certain types of meteorite and in corundum deposits and kimberlite deposits on earth. Natural moissanite was first found in 1893 as a small component of the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona by Dr. Ferdinand Henri Moissan, after whom the material was named in 1905.
Graphene is a form of carbon consisting of a single layer of atoms arranged in a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. Let me repeat that in simpler language: it is a sheet of carbon only 1 atom thick. That's 0.345 nanometer or in inches 0.0000000393701" thick. That's the thinnest compound in existence (so far). It is also the strongest substance known, 200 times stronger than steel. A sheet of graphene as thick as Saranwrap could hold up the weight of an elephant.
SiC can be used in the production of Graphene because of its chemical properties that promote the epitaxial production of graphene on the surface of SiC nanostructures. (Silicon alone is neither metal nor non-metal; it's a metalloid, an element that falls somewhere between the two. The category of metalloid is something of a gray area, with no firm definition of what fits the bill, but metalloids generally have properties of both metals and non-metals.)
SiC is a semiconductor containing silicon and carbon. Grains of silicon carbide can be bonded together by sintering to form very hard ceramics that are widely used in applications requiring high endurance, such as car brakes, car clutches and ceramic plates in bulletproof vests. Electronic applications of silicon carbide such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and detectors in early radios were first demonstrated around 1907. The phenomenon of electroluminescence was discovered in 1907 using silicon carbide and the first commercial LEDs were based on it. Yellow LEDs made from 3C-silicon carbide were manufactured in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and blue LEDs (6H-silicon carbide) worldwide in the 1980s.
SiC is also used in ceramics in a fine mesh as a reduction agent in glazes (to emulate reduction atmospheres in gas or other fuel kilns).
Silicon carbide is also used as a support and shelving material in high temperature kilns that are for firing ceramics, glass fusing, or glass casting. SiC kiln shelves are considerably lighter and more durable than traditional alumina shelves.
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