Edit: please explain like I am actually five.
In: 2979
It’s because of its ability to have stuff not stick to it. Sticky lubricants aren’t very useful, and to minimize friction (and thus resistance) you want a costing that sticks as little as possible. This makes silicone an ideal choice for both applications, because both rely on the substances lack of stickiness.
Edit:Oooh, I misread the original question as “non-stick” not “non-slip”, my apologies! Silicone the liquid spray is differs slightly from silicone the solid in composition, as well as having some additives. For something to be a liquid the molecules it’s composed of need to be able to slide past each other, and the less resistance there is to the molecules moving the lower viscosity and better lubricant the liquid is. Silicone the liquid spray has traditional oils added to it as well, to help the silicone molecules to glade past each other easily. Additionally the silicone is polymerized into smaller chains in the liquid than you find in the solid form. This makes it a wonderful lubricant.
Silicone the solid makes a great non-slip surface because it’s slightly soft and able to mold into the little surface imperfections of a solid, the cracks and crevices we can’t see with our eyes, allowing the silicone to grip the surface better. This is the same reason rubber makes a high traction non-slip surface.
Silicone, like any plastic, is a polymer. This means it is composed of the same small molecule (called a monomer) repeated over and over and over again. Silicone the solid exhibits a property called cross-linking, whereby one monomer forms bonds not just to the molecule in front of and behind it in the chain (that’s the definition of a polymer) but also to the sections next to it. Imagine if you had a pile of a chain, and you started welding links to the link next to them even if that link was far separated when you stretch the chain out. It’s these crosslinks that make silicone the solid a solid, and give it its non-stick properties
It has the ability to be made extremely smooth. Smooth things have less friction (Until they get reeeeeally smooth, then some additional weird quantum stuff can go on between them like cold welding and strange stuff, but we don’t have to worry about that). It can also be made not smooth. If you put it in a mold with a lot of texture, the silicone will pick up that texture. More texture means more friction. If you see a silicone mat that’s smooth, it’s probably non-stick. If it has a bunch of ridges, it’s non-slip.
There’s also something else with the ridges too, it often thins out some of the silicone, making it easier to bend. As it bends and squishes, it can temporarily deform itself to hug a surface more closely, meaning more surface area for more friction.
“Silicone” is really a class of chemicals, not one particular thing. It’s made of a single molecule (called a monomer) that’s joined in chains. A bunch of relatively short chains together make a slippery oil because they slide past each other easily.
Combine a bunch of long chains and link them together and you get a whole network, which gives you a solid substance with different properties. Since the chains are linked into a net, they can no longer slide past each other.
Silicone itself isn’t usually sticky, it becomes so when it absorbs some other types of oils for reasons i don’t understand well enough to explain
Water is cohesive. You can slip on a wet floor but if you wet a paper towel and throw it at the wall, it’ll stick there
A lot of stuff that’s silicone is made with silicone polymers. It’s about the same as an alloy when compared to metals. Various amounts and types of silicone chemicals are put together to make components like silicone chips, rubbers, adhesive, or, lubricants until you get what you’re looking for. A lot of it is marketing, but silicone based products are often more durable than traditional products that they replaced.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone
Edit: Like you’re five? A hot dog bun is bread. Sandwich bread is bread. A piece of sandwich bread folded up around a hotdog bun isn’t the same thing.
Pizza bread, pita bread, tortillas, and other breads are all flat breads. You can substitute one for the other, but it is not the same thing.
Please don’t lie to your five year old and tell them it’s the same thing.
Silicone is a name for any molecule made up of chains of something called “silane” units. Silane is a silicon atom connected to ~~oxygen~~ hydrogen atoms. Those silane units like to stick to many other things, but don’t like to stick to each other. So, if you have short chains of silane, and you put them between two surfaces, they’ll stick to each surface but in between, they will slide past each other. If the chains are very long, then one end of the chain sticks to one side, and the other end sticks to the other side, and the chain holds them together.
Edit: I forgot that the hydrogen atoms on the surface is what makes them not stick to each other. The silane units connect to each other with via oxygen atoms to form silicone.
Think Silicone as sand. It helps you glide things over easily if it isn’t glued down. If it is glued down, it act as a friction substance.
Silicone in liquid is lubricant and silicone in solid is non-slip.
Same as Sand and Sandpaper. Unstuck sand on road makes your car slide but when stuck on a piece of paper, lots of friction.
When someone says something is “silicone” or “silicone based”, they’re likely not talking about it being the raw element “silicon”. Instead, they’re referring to it being a material based on silicon.
It’s very much analogous to carbon and plastic. Many types of plastics like plastic bags, plastic toys, plastic packaging, plastic food containers, are all based on carbon. And yet, all those type of plastics are different from one another. Carbon is also the chemical basis behind natural oils like vegetable oil , which makes things slippery too. Or, you can press carbon into a diamond, which is very hard and rough, and glue thousands of tiny diamonds to stuff to make industrial grinders and cutters.
Likewise, with silicon, you can make it non-slip, sticky, or a lubricant by how you prepare it, and what else it’s mixed with (so to speak), just like with carbon.
Carbon makes graphite for pencils. Carbon also makes crystals for diamonds. The ingredients aren’t everything; it’s important how you put them together.
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