אינדקס
Iridium - The MOST RARE Metal on Earth!
Gallium - the terminator metal
Gallium is the terminator metal because it can change shape, form fidget spinner, go through aluminum and form explosive gases. Some tricks with gallium and Galinstan are shown in the video.
1) Gallium melts in hot sulpuric acid. It can be collected with a micropipette and small droplets join in a very funny way.
Maybe some physicist can explain why gallium does like this.
2) Potassium dichromate crystals are added, which makes gallium wobbling due to the formation of insoluble salts on the metal surface. The change of interfacial tension makes gallium change its shape.
3) In the second experiment, hydrogen peroxide is added instead of dicromate and the gallium groplet is touched with an iron wire. Now gallium makes itself as flat as possible and white layer (oxide?, sulphate?) forms at the metal surface. When gallium is heated shortly with a torch, it forms a single droplet and then again makes itself flat. Gas bubbles (probably oxygen) start bubbling through the metal and it becomes a flat white flower.
4) Then we prepared galinstan by heating together solid metals gallium (68%), tin (22%) and indium (10%). While gallium melts at 29.8 °C, Galinstan is even liquid at −19 °C. It can be spread onto a glass to make a mirror. Gallium and galinstan form an alloy with aluminum and this alloy reacts with water releasing hydrogen. So it can be used to store energy - aluminium and water on board of a hydrogen fuel cell car can make several times more hydrogen than high pressure hydrogen balloons could possibly accommodate and it is safer as well.
2Al(xGa) + 6H2O = 2Al(OH)3 + xGa + 3H2
It costs 70 MILLION dollars per kg! But why?
Sometimes science can be expensive!!!
I frequent deal with stable isotopes which can happily reach tens of thousands of dollars per gram. In this case ~$70 000 per gram for 41K. In this case I only had about 1/3rd of a gram.
Now it might seem like a lot, but bear in mind this is not really something you can sell. The market for 41K in the entire world is almost nothing. Indeed the only thing that gives it value is it costs so much to make it.
Thankfully, this stuff did good work! We got some of the best measurements on the hydration of potassium in the world!! Indeed they were good enough to highlight some of the previous knowledge about 41K, to the point where I had to bring this sample out of retirement and send it back to the reactor to check the properties of the nucleus.
Gallium - the terminator metal
Gallium is the terminator metal because it can change shape, form fidget spinner, go through aluminum and form explosive gases. Some tricks with gallium and Galinstan are shown in the video.
1) Gallium melts in hot sulpuric acid. It can be collected with a micropipette and small droplets join in a very funny way.
Maybe some physicist can explain why gallium does like this.
2) Potassium dichromate crystals are added, which makes gallium wobbling due to the formation of insoluble salts on the metal surface. The change of interfacial tension makes gallium change its shape.
3) In the second experiment, hydrogen peroxide is added instead of dicromate and the gallium groplet is touched with an iron wire. Now gallium makes itself as flat as possible and white layer (oxide?, sulphate?) forms at the metal surface. When gallium is heated shortly with a torch, it forms a single droplet and then again makes itself flat. Gas bubbles (probably oxygen) start bubbling through the metal and it becomes a flat white flower.
4) Then we prepared galinstan by heating together solid metals gallium (68%), tin (22%) and indium (10%). While gallium melts at 29.8 °C, Galinstan is even liquid at −19 °C. It can be spread onto a glass to make a mirror. Gallium and galinstan form an alloy with aluminum and this alloy reacts with water releasing hydrogen. So it can be used to store energy - aluminium and water on board of a hydrogen fuel cell car can make several times more hydrogen than high pressure hydrogen balloons could possibly accommodate and it is safer as well.
2Al(xGa) + 6H2O = 2Al(OH)3 + xGa + 3H2
It costs 70 MILLION dollars per kg! But why?
Sometimes science can be expensive!!!
I frequent deal with stable isotopes which can happily reach tens of thousands of dollars per gram. In this case ~$70 000 per gram for 41K. In this case I only had about 1/3rd of a gram.
Now it might seem like a lot, but bear in mind this is not really something you can sell. The market for 41K in the entire world is almost nothing. Indeed the only thing that gives it value is it costs so much to make it.
Thankfully, this stuff did good work! We got some of the best measurements on the hydration of potassium in the world!! Indeed they were good enough to highlight some of the previous knowledge about 41K, to the point where I had to bring this sample out of retirement and send it back to the reactor to check the properties of the nucleus.
