Each day for the rest of 2020 I'll write a bit about a random element of the periodic table.
As last year was “The Year of the Periodic Table”, and I shamefully missed it, I thought it would be nice to learn (then share said learnings with others) something about each of the elements of the periodic table. The plan is to write a bit about a random element of the periodic table each day for the rest of this year, as there are 118 confirmed elements and 118 days left until January 1st.
Fact checks welcome!
Clockwise from left: samarskite, the mineral that gives its name to samarium (from Wikimedia Commons), a tube containing some samarium (from Wikimedia Commons), samarium as it appears in the periodic table.
This is it, the last day of 2020, and therefore the final elemental blog post! And what an element to end on- the lanthanide metal samarium.
Like with the other rare earths, samarium’s discovery was in the 19th century. A French chemist called Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (also famous for discovering dysprosium and gallium) is often credited with finding samarium in a mineral called samarskite. Also common to other elements discovered in the magical 19th century, Boisbaudran figured that a new element lived in samarskite when he isolated a new chemical from the mineral (now thought to be either samarium oxide or hydroxide or a mixture) and found it produced wavelengths of light not associated with any other element in the spectrometer. He named the element samaria after the mineral samarskite, which is in turn named after Russian mining engineer Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets, whose mines contained his namesake. Samaria was then changed to samarium to fit with the other elements (got to have that “-ium” at the end).
By far the biggest modern application of samarium is in very powerful magnets. The element is joined by the metal cobalt, and are thus called samarium-cobalt magnets. These magnets are both stronger and more resistant to demagnetisation (referred to as having a higher coercivity) than standard iron magnets, and are stable even at 700°C making them better than neodymium magnets! This meant that smaller devices that use magnets, such as headphones, guitar pickups, stereos and even motors in solar powered aircraft could be made.
Samarium ions are added to glass and ceramics to increase the absorption of infrared light, which is often used for protective headwear and other contexts where infrared needs absorption. Like other lanthanide elements, samarium can also be a component of mischmetal, an easily ignited alloy that makes up lighter flints, and the arc lighting used for studios and cinematography. Finally, samarium is very good at absorbing neutrons without splitting, and is therefore often used to control nuclear reactions and prevent too many neutrons being released.
And that’s samarium- a strongly magnetic, Russian mining element!
..and that is also it for this blog!
Thanks everyone who has read any of the posts released over these last 118 days. I hope I have given you some fun facts to throw at people in future conversations, and gained a new appreciation for Scandinavia (particularly Ytterby), the 19th century and the Cold War in terms of their elemental discoveries! I encourage you to look further into things you found interesting, as in 2021, the power of knowledge will be crucial…
Thanks everyone! And remember, chemicals are not all evil and synthetic, they are merely everything 🙂
Barney
Clockwise from left: some lumps of lead (from Wikimedia Commons), lead has historically been used in architecture such as roofing (from jtcroofing.co.uk), lead as it appears in the periodic table.
A metal element, famous for its radiation blocking and toxicity, is our last of the elements with Latin letters in its symbol. Lead (or plumbum, its excellent Latin name) is an easily melted and worked metal, but also very dense, which gave it quite a few applications before the dangers were discovered and its use was phased out over the 20th century.
Lead has been known about and in use for over 6 millennia, with the first evidence of lead mining and smelting dating to around 7,000BC in Western Asia. It had a wide variety of uses across Ancient civilisations- the Egyptians used lead for ornaments, to weigh down fishing nets and in cosmetics, a practice which spread to Ancient Greece. White lead (a chemical mixture of lead carbonate and hydroxide) was used in Ancient Greece as an ingredient of paints, glazes and cosmetics, as it created an opaque even covering of whatever it was on. Ancient American civilisations used lead to produce amulets, and in Southern Africa lead was used lead in a process to stretch and strengthen metals called wire drawing. The Ancient Chinese used lead for currency, writing, and in a way that I have decided not to describe because it is terrible, a contraceptive. Lead is also of course the main element in the alloy pewter. The Romans really jumped on board with the use of lead, using it for sling bullets, tablets for writing on, coffins and of course water pipes. Lead being malleable and resistant to rusting seemed a perfect metal for plumbing, and in fact the word plumbing comes from the Latin for lead!
In later years lead was still used for piping, and indeed making rooves. In fact, stained glass, the excellent feature of churches across Europe, used lead to separate and outline the stained glass to create the colourful mosaics. The printing press, the first machine capable of printing the same image multiple times on paper, used lead components, and much later in the industrial revolution lead mining exploded as using lead-based paints and pipes became more in demand.
But lead had a secret, and that secret was lead poisoning. I say it was a secret, but the idea of lead having a more dangerous side was aware to some Ancient Romans including Pliny, Dioscurides, Vitruvius, Galen and Celsus. Vitruvius even wrote that people who worked on lead looked ill, and warned against the use of lead plates and even piping. Despite these warnings, lead use continued in abundance until the end of the 19th century, where people started to notice that the poor people who worked on lead quite often suffered illnesses including mental health issues, stomach pains, blindness and weakness in the hands, wrists and ankles. Lead is in fact toxic to almost every organ in the human body, as it creates radicals (highly reactive molecules that attack and damage DNA, proteins, and pretty much anything they run in to) and disrupts DNA and cell membranes. This eventually led to laws being passed to limit lead poisoning in factories, and lead began being phased out.
That was not before in 1921 lead was added to petrol as an “anti-knock agent”, preventing engines from knocking, which is when some of the petrol-air mixture inside an engine piston ignites in a location other than where the spark plug is due to pressure changes and subsequent temperature rising. This causes an audible “knocking” sound, and in the worst case scenario can destroy an engine. Lead helps to increase the temperature and pressure at which the fuel can ignite. This leaded petrol has now also been phased out due to the lead fumes that it would cause, and safer antiknock agents like ferrocene and isooctane are used.
There are some applications for lead that still exist. Cable sheaths, solders (because of lead’s low melting point) and car batteries (which are lead-acid batteries) still use the element and thus workers need to take extra care when exposed to the metal. Ammunition often has lead in it, although it is inadvisable to have too much lead shot in any hunted animal you intend to eat. Lead’s density also means that it is very good at stopping radiation, and therefore has uses in nuclear reactors to prevent radiation exposure of anyone nearby. A final and quite niche modern use for lead is in weights, both for lifting and diving belts when scuba diving. Again the density of lead means that provided the user is protected against exposure to the metal, they can have a heavier object in a smaller size.
And that’s lead- the toxic, plumbable, dense element!
Left: The Berkeley National Laboratory, home to many supervheavy elemental discoveries (from Wikimedia Commons). Right: berkelium as it appears on the periodic table.
Today we come to the last of our transuranic synthetic elements- berkelium. The last element created by humans in the 20th century. The final element to be exclusively radioactive (with the most stable isotope of berkelium having a half life of around 1,380 years). The ultimate element that has no real use outside of scientific research.
Glenn Seaborg’s team at (surprisingly) the Berkeley National Laboratory in California, USA, were the first to synthesis element 97. They bombarded americium with helium nuclei for hours in their cyclotron until the atom was detected, and eventually over the coming decade they continued to produce berkelium until that actually had enough to see the element without a microscope! They named the element berkelium in an early tradition for the actinide series of elements to be named in a similar fashion to the lanthanide element above it in the periodic table. Americium was underneath europium, curium was under gadolinium, and so berkelium (named after the city of Berkeley) was under terbium (named after the village of Ytterby). Does this mean that Ytterby technically influenced the name of 5 elements? I like to think so.
And that’s all there really is to say about berkelium. In 1962 the first chemical compound made with berkelium, berkelium dioxide (BkO2), was created, but there is no use for the element outside of research yet. But who knows? They’ve got this far with the element, and it can last for thousands of years, so keep an eye on this one.
Clockwise from left: the classic neon sign (from PickPik), neon as it appears in the periodic table, vacuum tubes in old televisions use neon as an inert gas for easy projection of electrons (from Wikiwand).
Today we round off the noble gases (the group of elements in column 18 of the periodic table that are pretty unreactive) with neon.
Neon was discovered just after krypton by Brits William Ramsay and Morris Travers at the end of the 19th century. After discovering argon in air, Ramsay and Travers started looking for other trace gases through liquefying air and slowly evaporating it to see what came off. When they found the heavier element krypton, they were a little surprised, as they were expecting a lighter element. So this time they cooled some argon right down until it turned solid, then allowed it to evaporate very slowly and took the first gas they found off it. This time they found a lighter gas, which they named neon using the Ancient Greek “neos“, which means “new”. Always a risky name to called something as now it’s over a century old, but the name stuck.
The two founders of most noble gases- William Ramsey (left; from Wikimedia Commons) and Morris Travers (right; from Imperial College through Twitter).
One application of neon has become possibly a more famous use of the word than the element itself- glowing signs. When Ramsay and Travers were investigating their new gas, they found that it glowed a bright red colour when electricity was passed through it. Then in the early 20th century a French inventor called Georges Claude managed to have enough neon being produced as a by-product of his air liquefication business (Air Liquide) that he could start selling neon gas-discharge lamps commercially. After a brief failure to sell them as an indoor domestic source of light (apparently the colour was off-putting), Claude began using that distractingly bright red light for advertising signs, which really did take off.
There are a few other uses for the noble gas. Neon’s inertness means it is often used in vacuum tubes in old television sets, as an insulating gas to protect electronics on pylons from lightning strikes, and as an inert gas used for breathing in diving equipment (it is more expensive than helium but also lowers the risk of squeaky voices). Liquid neon is often used as a cryogenic (where it reaches temperatures of around −246°C), although it is very expensive and so is only used in niche situations.
And that’s neon- the bright, “new” and vacuumed element!
Clockwise from top left: a fancy lump of silver (from Wikimedia Commons), silver is often used in mirrors for it is an excellent reflector (from Wikimedia Commons), silver as it appears in the periodic table.
Today we move from yesterday’s “little silver” to actual silver. Another element that is both precious and has been known about for a very long time, silver is not as strong as other ancient metals like copper and iron, and was mainly used for ornaments or as currency in ancient times. Silver is also quite a reactive element, meaning its value often came from the fact that it tarnishes more easily than other metals. The more observant amongst you will have also noticed that the chemical symbol of silver contains letters not found in the English word- “Ag”. This stems from the Latin word for silver- argentum, which in turn likely comes from the Proto-Indo-European word for “shining”. In fact, the word Argentina comes from a similar root, as a lot of silver mines can be found in the South American country.
The official discovery of silver sits deep in pre-history, so we cannot know for sure when it was noticed by humans. Currently the oldest evidence of silver mining comes from around 3,000BC in Greece and Turkey. There is also less well documented evidence of silver mining in Ancient Japan, China, India, Peru and Chile. As mentioned above, silver was often used as a valuable bartering tool, which would have eventually become money in the Ancient Greek and Roman civilisations. Throughout the years silver drove the economy of these eras, with the mining of the metal rising and falling with the Roman empire. Subsequently, silver mining in central and Eastern Europe became the main source of the element after the ancient sources dried up, and then when Europeans starting invading the Americas, the silver found in those mines made certain explorers and miners incredibly rich. Throughout this silver was used for wealth- either as coinage, bullion or in fancy trinkets like sculptures, polished silverware (such as plates and cutlery) and carafes (fancy wine jugs).
Silver’s attractive properties led to mythology being inspired by the shiny metal. Bullets made of silver were thought to be able to take out monsters like werewolves. But silver had a dark side in legend too, with silver being seen as a symbol of greed and materialism, for example with the biblical 30 pieces of silver representing betrayal. So silver seems to be a powerful substance, but one to use with caution, should its power corrupt your soul!
Nowadays silver is mainly used in fancy jewellery. The metal is often alloyed with others like copper or platinum, as silver is very soft and tarnishes very easily. As mentioned above, fancy tableware is made using sterling silver (92.5% silver mixed with other metals including copper, germanium, platinum and zinc), as are orchestral flutes. Silver is one of the most reflective substances, and so is excellent for coating glass for use in mirrors and to reflect heat energy within a thermos flask.
As mentioned in my bromine post, silver bromide is photosensitive, meaning it was used in older forms of photography and film-making. The silver bromide suspended in gelatine would be exposed to light energy (photons), which would fade the colour of the silver bromide and form an image depending on where the light hit and didn’t hit. This negative could then be processed to produce the photograph. This isn’t as common now due to digital photography, but it’s still nice to think about how much silver was in those disposable cameras you took on holiday as a kid.
One thing you may not have known about silver is that it is an E-number (E174), aka it is a food additive. It is added to food as a colourant, and is often used in Indian subcontinental foods in a similar way to gold leaf. The “silver leaf” (known as “vark”) is used to spruce up certain dishes.
The final use of silver I thought it would be fun to talk about is its medical uses. Silver is actually an excellent antimicrobial, and can take out bacteria, algae and fungi very well. It turns out the silver ion (Ag+) causes nasty damage by reacting with essential enzymes on the outer membranes of these germs. Therefore bandages, medical devices and even special brands of socks have silver compounds like silver sulfadiazine put in or on them to help prevent pathogens getting into wounds or toes. Unfortunately some bacteria are gaining resistance to silver through altering their enzymes to hide or remove the bits that silver can react with. Which means that silver is not often used as a straight up antibiotic. And on this note, something to avoid is colloidal silver- a suspension of silver or silver salts in liquid. This was discontinued as am antibiotic in the mid-20th century, but has resurged as a bit of a cure-all dietary supplement, but there is no science to back these claims that colloidal silver can cure cancer or HIV. “Silver deficiency” is not a thing, and incorrect dosage of colloidal silver is not only pointless but also dangerous, as it can cause silver poisoning. So be careful what snake oil “pharmacists” will try and sell you!
And that’s silver- the precious, antibacterial and reflective element!
Clockwise from top-left: a shiny replica lump of platinum (from Wikimedia Commons), platinum as it appears in the periodic table, platinum is used often in hard disk drives (from Pixabay).
We’ve covered all the other members of the platinum group, a group of relatively inert metals found near each other in the periodic table, now it is time for their leader, platinum. Its inertness, and therefore resistant corrosion, combined with its relative scarcity on Earth has landed it status as a highly desirable element, and therefore worth a fair amount (almost £24 per gram).
There is evidence of platinum being used outside of Europe in Ancient times. Traces of platinum have been found in Ancient Egyptian gold in tombs, potentially without the Egyptians realising. In South America, white gold (an alloy of gold and platinum) was used to make artefacts by native people thousands of years ago.
The abundance of platinum in the Americas began being noticed by Europeans millennia later. Records of a metal that could not be melted started appearing in the 16th century, and then in the 18th century naval officer and scientist Antonion de Ulloa found some nuggets of this mysterious metal after seeing Native Americans mining it in South America. After bringing the nuggets back to Europe, he studied the metal’s resistance to heat and corrosion, and published his data in 1748. This inspired further research on platinum across Europe for the rest of the 18th century. The metal was named platinum, using the Spanish “platino”, which means “little silver”, referring to the abundance of silver mines established in South America (this is also where the name Argentina comes from, only in Italian).
One of the main uses for platinum outside of research are in jewellery and awards. Platinum’s high melting temperature and resistance to corrosion means that relatively high percentage of the metal can be used in trinkets compared to other precious metals like gold. Platinum records also sit above gold records and below diamond records in terms of recognising the number of sales an artist has achieved for a specific recording (whether that is a single, album or music video). The number can vary depending on the country and what kind of recording is being honoured, but for albums in the USA it is considered 1,000,000 sales for platinum to be achieved.
Platinum’s other big use is in catalysts, and outside research this is specifically through catalytic converters. As good catalysts need to be able to lower the energy input needed for a reaction to happen without being used up itself, platinum’s inert nature lends itself well to this. Catalytic converters ensure that relatively clean gases are coming out of engine exhausts by ensuring that any leftover hydrocarbons that haven’t burned are combusted to produce water and carbon dioxide. Platinum catalysts can also be used in hydrogenation reactions (adding hydrogen to chemicals) and for converting hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen.
Alloys of platinum can be used in electronics. Thermocouples, which help measure the temperature in very hot environments like ovens, often use platinum alloys to help resist the high temperatures. Other uses for platinum and its alloys include in computer hard disks, spark plugs in cars and turbine blades.
Platinum being resistant to corrosion also has a history of providing standards for common measurements. From the late 19th century all the way to 1960, a bar of platinum-iridium alloy was used to determine how long a meter was, and before that it was a purer bar of platinum made at the end of the 18th century. From 1879 to 2019, a different cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy was used to denote a kilogram of mass, before its replacement with a different definition based on physical constants of the Universe. The standard hydrogen electrode, against which the electrode potential (ability to donate or receive electrons) of other chemicals is measured, uses a platinum electrode coated in platinum dipped in a reaction between dissolved hydrogen ions and hydrogen gas. Finally, platinum is used in one of the four thermometers used to calibrate other temperature measuring devices. So platinum can help define how long, heavy, warm and willing to donate electrons things are!
And that’s platinum- the little silver, standardising and catalysing element!
Clockwise from left: a gas discharge tube of krypton gas (from Wikimedia Commons), krypton often fills lamps like those used in flash photography (from Pixabay), krypton as it appears in the periodic table.
Nope, you don’t need to readjust your sets, there genuinely is an element with the same name as Superman’s home planet. I wanted to address that right away, and the disappointing news that because krypton is a noble gas, there is no mineral called kryptonite. In 2007 some scientists found a mineral in Serbia with the same elemental composition as kryptonite as described in the film Superman Returns (sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide), but unfortunately it was not allowed to be called kryptonite due to chemical naming laws. Shame, really, but any fans of the man of steel should seek out some jadarite if they want the closest thing to Superman’s Achille’s heel.
The discovery of krypton came in 1898, a few decades before Action Comics brought Superman to print in 1938. British chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers had just extracted neon (spoilers) and argon from atmospheric air, and were convinced that there must be more gas elements hidden in there. So they continued to liquify the air by cooling it, then evaporating gases off until they found a heavier one, which eventually they did. Ramsay and Travers then performed spectroscopy on the new gas, and confirmed that it was an element not previously discovered. They named it krypton, using the classic “-on” suffix for a noble gas and the Ancient Greek kryptos (κρυπτός) meaning “hidden one” (think cryptic and cryptozoology), as it was quite sneaky sitting in the air unnoticed for so long.
Being a noble gas, krypton’s inertness (unwillingness to react) lends itself to some applications. Krypton is often used as an insulating gas between glass panes in double glazed windows. It is sometimes used as a filling gas in lightbulbs to reduce filament evaporation and allow higher temperatures to be tolerated, but as krypton is more expensive than argon this is not as common. Ionised noble gases (where some outer electrons have been removed) mixed with electrons, known more commonly as plasma, will give off light when exposed to electrical discharge, and are the basis of gas-discharge lamps. In the case of krypton, the wavelengths given off combine to make a bright white colour, meaning that krypton-discharge lamps are used in fast flash photography. Mixing this ionised krypton with mercury makes a turquoise coloured light that is used in fluorescent signs.
Radioactive forms of krypton also exist, and have some interesting niche applications. Radioactive isotopes of krypton are a very common byproduct of nuclear reactions, so detection of radioactive krypton in the atmosphere is a way of detecting if such reactions has been occurring nearby. This was used in the cold war for estimating the extent of Soviet nuclear activity, and more recently to monitor the use of nuclear reactors by secretive countries like North Korea. Another radioactive isotope, 86Kr, was used between 1960 and 1983 to define the exact length of a meter. A meter was officially 1,650,763.73 times the wavelength emitted from the isotope, and was used because the gas-discharge lamp made with 86Kr was incredibly reliable and consistently gave the precise wavelength (of around 606nm, or a sort of orangey colour).
And that’s krypton: the meter-defining, bright white and cryptic element!
Clockwise from left: a scaly lump of yttrium (from Wikimedia Commons), yttrium plays an important part in radar technology (from GetArchive), yttrium as it appears on the periodic table.
Today we complete the Ytterby quadrology- the quartet of elements named after the Swedish village whose mine provided the minerals of their discovery. We’ve had ytterbium, erbium, terbium, and now we have the one that doesn’t rhyme with the others, yttrium.
For the origin story of ytterbium we return once again to the mineral ytterbite, found by Karl Arrhenius in a mine in Ytterby, Sweden at the end of the 18th century. Analysis from chemists Johan Gadolin and Anders Ekeburg found that the mineral contained a new “earth” as it was called at the time, which was called yttria. The understanding that “earths” were just element oxides, and that yttria’s element was yttrium, did not come until decades later. The oxide yttria was found to not only contain yttrium, but also ytterbium, terbium and erbium, making Ytterby the location with the most elements named after it!
Yttrium is used in alloys to strengthen metals like aluminium and magnesium. Yttrium can also be added to stronger metals like titanium and chromium to make them more malleable. It does this by decreasing the grain size of the metal- miniscule particles of metal that are randomly arranged to make the overall metal. The smaller these grains are, the easier the metal is to manipulate and bend. Yttrium iron garnets (crystals made from iron, yttrium and oxygen atoms regularly arranged) are often used as filters in microwave technology, ensuring that only specific electromagnetic wavelengths are broadcast or received. This is particularly important in radar technology. Yttrium aluminium garnet is often used in white LEDs and as a faux-diamond in jewellery, and another synthetic gem cubic zirconium often uses yttrium to stabilise the classic cubic structure. Yttrium oxysulphide was used in old cathode ray tube televisions as a red phosphor- when hit by the energy of fired electrons, the chemical gives off a red light, which combined with other colours gives an image.
Yttrium also plays a role in medicine, specifically the radioactive isotope yttrium-90. Y-90 is attached to specific antibodies, proteins that can recognise and bind specific biological structures, which in this case are cancer cells. The attached radioactive yttrium can then expose the cancer cells with intense beta-radiation, killing said cells. Many cancers are currently treated by this radiotherapy, including ovarian, leukaemia and liver cancer.
And that’s yttrium- the filtering, cancer-killing and first Ytterbian element!
Clockwise from left: Tantalus, a son of Zeus in Greek mythology damned to eternal hunger and thirst whilst surrounded by fruit and water (from greekmyths-greekmythology.com); a wavy lump of tantalum (from Wikimedia Commons); tantalum as it appears in the periodic table.
We’re not quite done yet with elements named after Greek mythology, so here’s tantalum. Tantalum is one of the refractory metals, a bunch of transition metals that a very resistant against high temperatures, most chemical reactions and being worn down. They are often alloyed with other metals like steel to help strengthen them, and are used in metal casting molds, wire filaments and chemical reaction vessels. Tantalum is joined by molybdenum, niobium, tungsten and rhenium in this refractory team, with other elements sometimes joining them depending on how broad your definition of the group is.
Tantalum was discovered and named by Swedish chemist Anders Ekeberg in 1802, although due to a bit of confusion in the minerals he analysed the element was not confirmed until halfway through the 19th century. Ekeburg had analysed some Scandinavian minerals (later called tantalite) and concluded that there was a new metal within. He named the element tantalum, after the Greek mythological character Tantalus. Tantalus was punished by the Greek Gods after his death by being forced to stand in a lake surrounded by delicious fruit, and if he tried to drink the water the level would go down so he couldn’t reach, and if he tried to eat the fruit they would lift out of his grasp. This is where we get the word tantalise, but for Ekeburg he was referring to how the metal he found was unable to absorb or react with acid when submerged in it.
However the element Ekeburg discovered was compared to a previously discovered element called columbium by English chemist William Wollaston, and Wollaston falsely declared tantalum and columbium to be the same. To add to the confusion, in 1846 a German chemist called Heinrich Rose said that tantalite contained two elements- niobium, and pelopium (thus named after the children of Tantalus). Finally the record was set straight in 1864 by chemists Christian Blomstrand, Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville (woah), and Louis Troost. They determined that the original tantalum and niobium were in fact their own elements. Pelopium was also found to be just a mixture of niobium and tantalum, and that niobium and columbium were the same element. Phew, that’s that sorted then.
The key to tantalum’s applications is its inertness- it does not react much with other chemicals, meaning it resists corrosion. As said for refractory metals, tantalum’s inclusion in alloys adds significant strength and heat resistance, with uses for such alloys in nozzles for spacecraft and supersonic planes and in turbine blades. The resistance to reacting with chemicals like acids has led to tantalum’s use in storage vessels and pipes for corrosive and reactive materials. Tantalum can form a very thin layer of oxide on its surface, which is often used to make very small capacitors (an electrical component that can store electrical energy). These tiny capacitors are often used in video games consoles, mobile phones and laptops. So tantalum could be in the device you’re reading this on right now!
One of the more curious, but definitely useful, uses of tantalum’s non-reactivity is in medicine. Tantalum is hypoallergenic- it will not initiate an immune response in the body- and therefore can be used as surgical implants. Specially printed tantalum foams or meshes can be used as skull plates, hip replacements, connect torn nerves and bind muscles. Tantalum is also a non-ferrous non-magnetic metal, and therefore is safe to use in MRI machines. What a helpful element tantalum is!
And that’s tantalum- the inert, skeletal and tormenting element!
Left: the Nobel Prize, depicting Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel (from Wikimedia Commons). Right: nobelium as it appears in the periodic table.
When people think of famous chemists, there are certain names that come up (I think). We’ve already covered Marie Curie so we’ll go to the other big chemist- Alfred Nobel. Therefore when it comes to naming superheavy synthetic elements, nobelium was inevitable. Nobelium has (like all its friends at the bottom of the periodic table) very little use outside research, and is radioactive, with the most stable form of nobelium having a half-life of just under an hour. But this is a chance to talk about Alfred Nobel and his prize, so here we go.
Also like other superheavy elements, nobelium’s discovery was controversial and involved several competing research groups. Interestingly however, it was Sweden who was the first to announce creation of element 102 in 1957 rather than the US or Soviet Union. They had bombarded curium with carbon ions for just over a day, during which they claimed to have detected the new element. They proposed the name nobelium after Alfred, and IUPAC very quickly approved the discovery and name.
This led to some arguments amongst Sweden, the United States and the Soviet Union. The American team could not repeat the experiments that the Swedes performed, and the Soviets declared IUPAC’s decision as “hasty”. After attempting to address the US failure to repeat the experiments, eventually Sweden caved in to increasing evidence that they had detected thorium instead of element 102 and retracted their discovery claim. A similar story occurred in 1958 where the Americans this time tried to claim producing element 102. They too bombarded curium with carbon ions, but arguments over the half lives of the atoms produced combined with subsequent decades of research showed it was more likely that fermium was instead produced.
The three countries continued to attempt, discuss and argue over the creation of element 102, but it was the Soviets who got the most conclusive evidence of creating it in 1966. They achieved it by bombarding uranium with neon ions, and despite the US still claiming they had succeeded earlier, IUPAC acknowledged in 1992 that it was a Soviet discovery. The name nobelium had been used in scientific literature throughout this time, so when IUPAC was trying to resolve the naming controversy in the 90s, nobelium was once again officially acknowledged.
But enough about squabbling physicists, what about Alfred Nobel? Well Alfred was a Swedish chemist, famous for inventing many different forms of explosive, including dynamite (which incidentally comes from the Ancient Greek for “power”), blasting gelatine or gelignite, and a smokeless powder explosive called ballistite. These explosives came from Nobel’s figuring out how to safely handle the incredibly explosive chemical nitroglycerin, meaning that explosives could be transported safely and manually detonated. In fact, Nobel had 355 different patents, and was a successful businessman with plenty of wealth.
Nobel’s explosive creations, from left to right: dynamite (from Pixabay), gelignite (from Learnodo Newtonic), and ballistite (from Wikimedia Commons).
But Nobel had a bit of an epiphany about his legacy, and it is apparently due to a mistaken French obituary. When Nobel’s brother Ludvig passed away in Cannes in 1888, a French newspaper accidentally published Alfred’s obituary. Now on top of his brother’s death AND seeing your own obituary in the paper, Nobel also saw what kind of impact he had on the world. The rather brutal obituary was titled “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (the merchant of death is dead), referring to the use of his explosives in military applications. The article continued: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday”. This led Nobel to have a bit of a crisis of legacy, and subsequently he changed his will in 1895 to dedicate most of his estate and wealth (which equated to around 3.1b Swedish Kronor, or £274m) to creating the “Nobel Prizes”, a series of prizes that are awarded “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”. Nobel set up 5 separate prizes for this- Physics, Chemistry, Medicine/Physiology, Literature and Peace. The winners received a diploma, a medal and a financial award, which still occurs today with the winners receiving just under £900,000 in 2020. The first Nobel prizes were given out in 1901, 5 years after Nobel’s death, and with it he succeeded in changing his legacy to something more positive.
And that’s nobelium- an explosive, rewarding and secretly Russian element!
An Element A Day