Category Elements

                Like twins, these two elements were born together! Carl Auer von Welsbach, an Austrian scientist, discovered neodymium and praseodymium at the same time. He separated the elements from a substance called didymium in 1885.

               Praseodymium can be found in a variety of minerals. Larger quantities of the element are found in monazite and bastnasite. Praseodymium is commonly used as an alloying agent with magnesium to create high strength metals used in aircraft engines. The atomic number of praseodymium is 59, and the element is represented as Pr.

               Neodymium is a soft and silvery metal. The element easily reacts with the air. Its uses are manifold. Neodymium’s chief use is as a reddish-purple pigment for glass and ceramics. It is also used in cryocoolers that regulate heat in experiments with metals. Neodymium is an important element in certain fertilizers. The element, when alloyed with iron and boron, produces the strongest permanent magnets known to exist.

              Neodymium has the atomic number 60 and it is represented as Nd.

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               There are three scientists who are credited with the discovery of the element cerium. While Swedish chemists Jons Jacob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger discovered the element in Sweden, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a German scientist, discovered it in his mother country. Both these discoveries were done independently of each other, in the year 1803.

               Cerium is named after the asteroid Ceres, a dwarf planet, which was discovered in 1801. The planet’s name derives from the Roman goddess of agriculture. Cerium is one abundant element.

               Cerium is a grey silvery-white metal. It decomposes slowly in cold water, and very rapidly in hot water. It is found in several minerals including allanite or orthrite, monazite, bastnasite, cerite and samarskite. Large deposits of cerium have been found in India, Brazil and in Southern California.

               Cerium burns when heated and is used in self-cleaning ovens. The film and television industry extensively uses it in carbon-arc lighting technology for studio lighting and projector lights.

               The atomic number of cerium is 58, and the atomic symbol is Ce.

           Gallium is an interesting metal because it is hard and brittle in a cool atmosphere, soft in standard temperature and liquid in warm conditions. This metal is never found in its free form in nature.

            Dmitri Mendeleev, whom we have seen before as an illustrious scientist and the father of the periodic table, had predicted the existence of gallium before its discovery. He had named the missing element as ‘Eka-Aluminium’.

           The element was first discovered in 1875 by Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a French chemist.

           You may have wondered how LED lights emit such glow. Gallium is used in the Light Emitting Diodes (LED). It is also used in electronic circuits and as semiconductors.

            The element has use in high-temperature thermometers, barometers, pharmaceuticals etc. However, the element has no known biological value.

            Gallium makes up about 0.0019 per cent of the earth’s crust by weight. The largest producers of gallium are Australia, Russia, France and Germany. It has an atomic number of 31, and the symbol is Ga.

            Zinc, like copper, is a metal which was in use from ancient times. This bluish-silver coloured metal is crucial to life today as it is important in many industrial processes that often go unseen. Zinc is mostly used as an anti-corrosion agent.

            The element was probably named by the 16th century Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus. Zinc is used in the production of brass alloying with copper. There are many other alloys of the metal too. Zinc has non-corrosive properties; and therefore, it is used in plating iron.

             After copper, iron and aluminium, zinc is the most required metal in industry. It is zinc that is used in lithium batteries as anode. It is used in paints, fire safety equipment, wood preservatives, clocks, farming etc.

            The element, in its pure form, was discovered by Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, a German chemist, in 1746. Zinc is the 25th most abundant element in the earth’s crust.

             The element burns with a blue-green flare. Thirty per cent of the production of zinc is done through recycling and the rest by mining. It has an atomic number of 30, and the symbol is Zn.

            In ancient times, the metal copper was found in abundance on Cypress, an island country in the Mediterranean.

            The country was a major exporter of the metal to the other parts of the world. It is from Cypress that copper gets its name.

            Copper was the first metal that man attempted to shape and mould. One of the greatest discoveries of the ancient man was the knowledge that a harder alloy metal, bronze, could be produced by adding tin to copper. This discovery led the human race to the Bronze Age.

            Besides gold, copper is the only metal in the periodic table whose colouring is not naturally silver or grey. Shiny and reddish, copper was the first metal that man learned to manipulate, and it remains one of the most important metals in the world today.

            Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in their directly useable form. A key metal in industry, copper is used for electrical wiring, plumbing and roofing.

            The atomic number of copper is 29, and the atomic symbol is Cu.

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               Nickel is a metal which has been in use for thousands of years. Its use by humans dates back to at least 3500 BC. However, the element was discovered quite recently. Axel Fredrik Cronstedt, a Swedish mineralogist, was trying to extract copper from minerals in1751; but succeeded in discovering another metal, which he named nickel.

              Nickel is the sixth most abundant element on Earth. However, its presence in the Earth’s crust is very minimal. The element is 100 per cent more concentrated below the Earth’s surface than in the crust.

             Under standard conditions, nickel is found to be silvery white in colour and is fairly hard. This element is magnetic at room temperature like three other metals, such as iron, cobalt, and gadolinium. However, nickel loses its magnetism above 255 degrees Celsius.

              Most of the metal obtained today is used in the manufacture of nickel steel and alloys. Nickel steel, such as stainless steel, is an extremely strong material. The element is useful for a host of other products such as batteries, coins, guitar strings, and armour plates.

            Nickel is generally identified in meteorites where it is usually found combined with iron. There is a large nickel deposit located in Canada, and scientists think it is from a meteorite that smashed into the Earth thousands of years ago. Atomic number of this element is 28, and the symbol is Ni.