

Six years later in 1875, an ambitious French element hunter François Lecoq de Boisbaudran one of the earliest proponents of the new-fangled technique of spectroscopy spotted a line in the violet part of the visible spectrum at 417nm in a sample of zinc sulphide, he realized that this must come from a new element. So confident was he in the correctness of his framework that he named the as yet undiscovered element ekaaluminium. One of these was the absence of an element which he expected to fit below Aluminum. Dmitri Mendeleev, the bearded Russian chemist who constructed the periodic table as we know it today, spotted a number of gaps and discrepancies in his arrangement. Yet for all its strangeness the discovery of this odd element was no accident. I undid the knot eagerly and there it was, a gleaming silvery lump bearing all the hallmarks of a metal that had been repeatedly melted and then refrozen. The M & M of the elements the one which reputedly melts in your mouth but not in your hand, he handed me a small plastic bag badly stained with black smudges.
#Galio and yet it moves full
I was reminded of all this when a colleague of mine who was having a lab clear out, knocked on my door and asked me knowing full well what my answer would be, 'Hi Andrea, would you like a lump of Gallium?', 'of course I would love some Gallium', I gurgled. You could pop them into your mouth one by one and suck them gently until the smooth surface became crumbling to reveal the smooth milk chocolate beneath alternatively you cold cram your mouth with as many as you could and crunch them greedily to cause an explosion of sound, texture and flavour in your head. When I was a child growing up in New York, some of the sweets most sort after by my classmates and me, with yellow and brown packs of highly coloured sugar coated chocolate pills bearing the characters M & M. Political stability of top reserve holderĪ percentile rank for the political stability of the country with the largest reserves, derived from World Bank governance indicators. The higher the value, the larger risk there is to supply.Ī percentile rank for the political stability of the top producing country, derived from World Bank governance indicators.

The percentage of the world reserves located in the country with the largest reserves. The higher the value, the larger risk there is to supply. The percentage of an element produced in the top producing country. Low = substitution is possible with little or no economic and/or performance impact Medium = substitution is possible but there may be an economic and/or performance impact High = substitution not possible or very difficult. The availability of suitable substitutes for a given commodity. A higher recycling rate may reduce risk to supply. The percentage of a commodity which is recycled. The number of atoms of the element per 1 million atoms of the Earth’s crust. This is calculated by combining the scores for crustal abundance, reserve distribution, production concentration, substitutability, recycling rate and political stability scores. The Chemical Abstracts Service registry number is a unique identifier of a particular chemical, designed to prevent confusion arising from different languages and naming systems.ĭata for this section been provided by the British Geological Survey.Īn integrated supply risk index from 1 (very low risk) to 10 (very high risk). Where more than one isotope exists, the value given is the abundance weighted average.Ītoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. This is approximately the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The mass of an atom relative to that of carbon-12. The transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase without passing through a liquid phase.ĭensity is the mass of a substance that would fill 1 cm 3 at room temperature. The temperature at which the liquid–gas phase change occurs. The temperature at which the solid–liquid phase change occurs. The arrangements of electrons above the last (closed shell) noble gas. These blocks are named for the characteristic spectra they produce: sharp (s), principal (p), diffuse (d), and fundamental (f).

The atomic number of each element increases by one, reading from left to right.Įlements are organised into blocks by the orbital type in which the outer electrons are found. Members of a group typically have similar properties and electron configurations in their outer shell.Ī horizontal row in the periodic table.
