News

Sorry for not doing an element recently, but I am looking at lots of interesting samples to buy! I have a few on their way, but I'll try to do another one tomorrow, maybe Lead or Aluminum.

I also received my shipment of sample vials, they are very nice. Since I bought bulk, I could sell a few off, but most likely I will wait until I have extra samples to sell with them. Comment if interested.

There they are, all cute and small. I also bought some larger ones for larger samples, but they aren't quite as.. Adorable. As I have these, I can now store several gas samples I haven't been able to in the past, such as electrolyzed Hydrogen and Oxygen, along with a few others.. But I'm waiting on Hydrogen until I have some special Isotopes to show off, which will be worth it I guarantee.

I will also be buying some glass tubing and hopefully learn to blow glass, this will open up invaluable possibilities such as melted-shut glass tubes (called ampoules) I can store reactive elements in permanently, along with gas-discharge lights (See Neon post for info on those) for different gases, possibly even more advanced vacuum-electric devices.

Stay tuned, and remember donations will bring more exciting samples!

~Ben

The Periodic Table Itself!

I noticed I hadn't shown you what the actual periodic table looks like yet, however most of you have probably seen it. I whipped up this version of it with the groups very well signified, and only Atomic Number and Atomic Symbol, because I'll explain more when I get to that element.

So this is it.. It's a bit small here, but hopefully you can read all the atomic symbols (letters)

Let me start by explaining how it works. The atomic number(shown upper left corner of each square) starts at 1 in the upper left corner (Hydrogen), and goes down as you go to the right, going to a new line when it runs out of room. The elements are organized so that elements with similar traits are above and below each other. A radiation hazard symbol is shown in the upper-right corner of radioactive elements.

Now I'll explain the groups.

The Pink group is just Hydrogen, because Hydrogen is very unique, and since it's the first, it gets it's own special group. It can be classified as a Non-Metal as well.

The Red group is the Alkali Metals, Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Caesium(Or Cesium, either spelling is excepted), and Francium. All of the Alkali Metals are very reactive, and most will catch fire or explode when submerged in water, due to forming Hydroxides (Example: KOH, being one Potassium, Oxygen, and Hydrogen. Since water is H2O, or two H and one O, there is an extra Hydrogen) and Hydrogen from the water, which catches fire from the heat produced. They get more reactive as they go down, Lithium will simply burn in water, Caesium will explode. Because of this high reactivity, they are stored submerged in Mineral Oil, which is much less reactive than Water. Francium is highly radioactive will decay almost entirely in a matter of hours.

The Turquoise group is the Alkali Earth metals, Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium, Barium, and Radium. They are similar to the Alkali metals in their reactivity with water, but much less violent, non of them are reactive enough to make the extra Hydrogen catch fire. Radium is very radioactive, and was quite famously used in very old glow-in-the-dark paint, but banned because of workers who used the paint becoming quite sick. I hope to get a sample of this paint for a later post, but I will store it quite carefully.

The Light Blue group are Lanthanoids, named after the first in the group, Lanthanum. They are also called "Rare-Earth" metals, because most of them are quite unusual. They have many uses, mostly in alloying very tiny amounts into Steel (Iron and Carbon) to increase it's strength, or other desired traits. In the common periodic table, this and the Actinoid(see below) group are detached and shown below the rest, because if included the periodic table would be uncomfortably wide.

The Dark Green group are Actinoids, named after the first in the group, Actinium. All of the actinoids are radioactive, example Uranium and Plutonium, both are used in nuclear power plants and bombs. This makes them rather hard to collect, but some of them do have more common uses, like Uranium is used to color glass a bright green color.

The Light Green group are Transition Metals, this group contains most common metals we know, such as Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, Zinc, and many more. Few of them are Radioactive, but there are some such as Technetium, which is very radioactive and is never found in nature because it decays quite quickly. There are many easy to find Transition Metals, so I will definitely have posts on them coming up.

The Light Blue group are Poor Metals, being named after the fact that most of them do not conduct electricity very well, and some are brittle and will crack rather than bend. Well known elements in this group contain Aluminum, Lead, and Tin.

The Yellow group are Semi-Metals, being named for some metallic properties, but some not. Most are shiny like metals, but brittle like non-metals. Most conduct electricity much better when heated, which makes them invaluable in making electronics and computers, example Silicon, computers would still be the size of a house if it wasn't for it!

The Dark Blue group are non-metals, including Carbon, Nitrogen (gas), Oxygen (gas), Phosphorous, and Sulfur. Most of them are very common in nature, almost everything organic is built on a frame of Carbon, and the air we breathe is about 78% Nitrogen.

The Orange group are Halogens, which are extremely reactive gases, liquids, and solids. A good example is Chlorine, which in pure form is a gas, but many compounds of Chlorine are used as bacteria killers in pools, and to bleach clothing. They are all considered toxic to touch or ingest, as they will react with elements in your body and destroy them.

The Purple group are the Noble Gases, which are all gases, and all VERY non-reactive. In nature they are found in pure form, because they will not form any compounds. The air we breath has very small percentages of almost all of these gases, and is the main source of them for most companies that purify them. They are also valuable in Gas-Discharge lights, because if put in a slight vacuum and an electrical charge put through them, they will give off light. Most of my samples of these gases are in unusual light bulbs I've collected.

That's all the groups, my next post might be a intro to Radioactivity, just to understand any radioactive samples I might have.

Thanks for reading!

~Ben

My Goal

What I intend to do is collect either a sample, a sample of a compound, or a relevant sample to every element on the periodic table, and tell you about one element every week at least! It is also a goal of mine not to buy any samples sold specifically to collectors like me, but to find them in what they are used for or how they are found in nature(For the more unusual(or very common) ones though, I may resort to buying a small sample for purity sake) I may also do side-projects you can do with these elements in between posts. Why you ask? Mostly for my own enjoyment, but also to share information I've learned myself, and help anyone else with the same fascination!

Assumably some elements are easy and found every day, such as Aluminum, Copper, Nickel if you're lucky. However some elements are extremely rare and basically unused in any common household item or process, such as Iridium, Osmium, Uranium, etc. I will try to alternate posting info on simple elements and rare ones, but still, it won't be easy.

However, I will disclaim that some processes I do to isolate elements are dangerous, and generally when dealing with any chemicals you don't know very well there is a high risk of poisoning or even explosions. I highly suggest you don't try anything I do unless you understand the process, or fully think it's worth the risks.

Also, I may find items containing rare elements or know where to find them, but if I cannot afford them, I cannot photograph them and therefor won't ad them to my collection. My budget currently isn't very high, but you can help by hitting the donate button to the right of these posts!

Thank you for reading, my next post will be on what defines elements and some basic chemistry to understand terms I'll use later. After that, I start on only elements and side notes!

~Ben