Showing posts with label Rare metals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rare metals. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Characteristics of Rubidium

Rubidium is a kind of chemical element with the symbol Rb and atomic number 37. Rubidium is a soft, silvery-white metallic element of the alkali metal group, with an atomic mass of 85.4678. Elemental rubidium is highly reactive, with properties similar to those of other elements in Group 1, such as very rapid oxidation in air. Rubidium has only one stable isotope, 85Rb, with the isotope 87Rb, which composes almost 28% of naturally occurring rubidium, being slightly radioactive with a half-life of 49 billion years—more than three times longer than the estimated age of the universe.
RubidiumGerman chemists Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff discovered rubidium in 1861 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy.
Rubidium's compounds have various chemical and electronic applications. Rubidium metal is easily vaporized and has a convenient spectral absorption range, making it a frequent target for laser manipulation of atoms.Rubidium is not known to be necessary for any living organisms. However, like caesium, rubidium ions are handled by living organisms in a manner similar to potassium ions, being actively taken up by plants and by animal cells.
Rubidium is a very soft, ductile, silvery-white metal. It is the second most electropositive of the non-radioactive alkali metals and melts at a temperature of 39.3 °C (102.7 °F). Similar to other alkali metals, rubidium metal reacts violently with water, forms amalgams with mercury and alloys with gold, iron, caesium, sodium, and potassium, but not lithium (despite the fact that rubidium and lithium are in the same group). As with potassium (which is slightly less reactive) and caesium (which is slightly more reactive), rubidium's reaction with water is usually vigorous enough to ignite the hydrogen gas it liberates. Rubidium has also been reported to ignite spontaneously in air. Rubidium has a very low ionization energy of only 406 kJ/mol.  Rubidium and potassium show a very similar violet color in the flame test, which makes spectroscopy methods necessary to distinguish the two elements.(from Wikipedia)

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Explaination of Sponge

Sponge

Sponges are animals of the phylum Porifera. They are multicellular organisms which have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them, consisting of jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells. Sponges have unspecialized cells that can transform into other types and which often migrate between the main cell layers and the mesohyl in the process. Sponges do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems. Instead, most rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food, oxygen and remove wastes.
Sponge can be used to create special incandescent light bulbs and high-temperature galvanic. Rhenium, tungsten, iron alloy with high hardness,strong abrasion resistance and anti-corrosive. It has highly selective catalytic function to many chemical reactions, therefore,it is also used as a catalyst, satellite and rocket shells, atomic reactor fenders.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

What is Silicon?

Silicon
Silicon  is a chemical element whose symbol is Si and its atomic number is 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table. Controversy about silicon 's character dates to its discovery: silicon was first prepared and characterized in pure form 1824, and given the name silicium ,with an -ium word-ending to suggest a metal. However, its final name, suggested in 1831, reflects the more physically similar elements carbon and boron.
Silicon is the 18th most common element in the universe by mass, it, however, very rarely occurs as the pure free element in nature. It is most widely distributed in dusts, sands, planetoids, and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide or silicates. More than 90% of the Earth's crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon become the second most abundant element in the earth's crust (about 28% by mass) after oxygen.
Most silicon is used commercially without being separated, and indeed often with little processing of compounds from nature. These include direct industrial building-use of clays, silica sand and stone. Silica is used in ceramic brick. Silicate goes into Portland cement for mortar and stucco, and when combined with silica sand and gravel, to make concrete. Silicates are also in whiteware ceramics such as porcelain, and in traditional quartz-based soda-lime glass. More modern silicon compounds such as silicon carbide form abrasives and high-strength ceramics. What's more, Silicon  is the basis of the ubiquitous synthetic silicon-based polymers called silicones.

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