Aluminum

Aluminum is a very common metal, and has a light dull grey color. It is fairly easy to melt and cast, and scrap is easily available in many forms.

Atomic name is Al, number is 13, weight is 26.981, and it sits in the "poor metal" section of the periodic table. Most common Isotope is Aluminum-27 with 14 neutrons, but traces of Aluminum-26 have been found and are very slightly radioactive.

Aluminum is one of my favorite metals, as it doesn't easily corrode due to a protective oxide layer which forms quite fast, but doesn't flake off like rust on Iron, keeping the Aluminum under the surface safe from corrosion. It's melting point is only 1220 F, which can easily be made by a wood or charcoal fire if you keep good airflow.

Aluminum is generally very common construction material, being fairly cheap, far lighter than steel, but still good strength. It's used in many airplanes or helicopters for these traits. It is also an extremely good electrical conductor, 2/3rds as good as copper, but 1/3rd as heavy, making one of it's most common uses electrical power lines.

Almost all structural Aluminum is alloyed with small amounts of most commonly Copper and Zinc, to make it less prone to cracking. The most common alloy is known as "6061" Aluminum, and can have up to 1% of Silicon, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Magnesium, Chromium, Zinc, and Titanium, but most times contains less than 5% other metals.

Here are my samples

Sample 1: These are all items I cast myself, from right to left: A water-cast blob, made by pouring liquid metal in water, a "medallion", made just for the fun of it, and the result of pouring aluminum into a hole in loose soil. The large lump is what I had left over, so I poured it all into a cooking pan.

Sample 2: This is a small heat sink from something electronic. Aluminum conducts heat very well, similar to electricity, so by putting aluminum vanes on a hot object, the heat is carried out the vanes and dissipated into the air. Used quite commonly in computers, because the processor chips get hot.

Sample 3: This is an aluminum plate, I don't know what it was for, but my dad got a pile of them as scrap from a former job (Same job as the copper slab)
Sample 4: One of the easiest samples, Aluminum foil (Sometimes called Tin foil, but it's been made out of aluminum for quite some time now)

Sample 5: Soda can, another easy one to get, however it doesn't really show what the surface of aluminum looks like, because there's a label on the outside and a thin plastic coating on the inside.

This is another sample of Aluminum, a good example of structural aluminum, a 30 foot antenna tower my dad owns. My dad has lots of interesting stuff, doesn't he?

All in all, Aluminum is quite a useful metal, and not hard to get a sample of. I have many more samples than this, some are quite large though, so I left them out.

Thanks again for reading!

~Ben

Coming soon: Lead, Thorium, Radium.

Experiment: Electrolysis

Electrolysis is a process of using electric current (Generated by any means) to artificially separate elements in a compound. The pure elements (Or new compounds in some cases) can therefor be purified where no chemical reaction can yield them.

One of the most basic electrolysis experiments is electrolyzing water. Water is Hydrogen Oxide, or H2O (Meaning two Hydrogen, one Oxygen). The most basic way to do this experiment is take a 9-volt battery (The small square kind), hook a paper clip on each lead (But don't let them touch!), then submerge both leads in water. Bubbles will form on both paper clips, but one should have twice as many bubbles, as water is "H2O" there is twice as much Hydrogen than Oxygen. If you change the setup a little bit, you can easily make these electrodes go into a container, and store your precious Hydrogen and Oxygen!

This is my setup. It's hard to see because it's in a clear bowl sitting on carpet, sorry about that, but I have insulated wire (coated in plastic) with a small portion of the insulation (plastic) stripped off at the end, because bubbles will only form on the conductive metal part. After making sure my two glass vials where FULL of water, I stuck the wires into them as to catch every tiny bubble of Hydrogen and Oxygen.

I fill the vials with water because one Hydrogen starts forming, I don't want there to be any air mixed in, as air has Nitrogen and Oxygen and it would be impure, but because water is a liquid and not a gas, it is easily pushed out by the Hydrogen. Make sure you put the cap on the vials BEFORE taking them out of the water! You don't want any air mixed with your newly isolated elements.

So this is a very basic process for "Isolating" (purifying) the elements Hydrogen and Oxygen, and can quite easily be done at home. I intend to make a much better system for this though, and maybe sell pure Hydrogen or Oxygen samples later, if anyone wants them that is.

This is not my post on either Hydrogen or Oxygen, because I'm still collecting more interesting samples for them, and want to wait until I have the best array possible. I can get a sample of Hydrogen that's radioactive, and is sealed in a glass vial with chemicals that glow because of the radioactivity! However I can't afford that just yet... So it will be a while.

Thanks for reading!

~Ben

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

Radioactivity

Here I'll teach you the basics of radioactivity, which comes in handy for a good number of the elements I might collect.

In all simplicity, a radioactive atom(which is just a small particle of an element) is an atom who's core (Protons+Neutrons) is unstable, and, given a certain time, will decay into an atom of a different element. synthetic (man-made)Isotopes, or atoms with different numbers of Neutrons than normal, are quite often radioactive and depending on what kind of atom they are they will decay either one element forward in the periodic table, or one element back.

The decay of these elements is in the form of either Alpha particles, Beta particles, or Gamma rays. Further description below:

Alpha particles are basically Helium cores, being two protons and two neutrons, but with no electrons. Alpha particles are generally the least dangerous, as they can barely penetrate a few inches of air, and are easily blocked by even a thin piece of paper.

Beta particles are free electrons, but in a different form than normal electrical voltage. They can be slightly more hazardous than Alpha particles, and penetrate air easily, only being stopped by a sheet of metal.

Gamma rays are high energy Photons, the same stuff normal light is made out of, but they are invisible and of much higher energy. These tend to bet he most harmful type of radiation, because they can penetrate even semi-thick metal, but are easily blocked by a thick layer of a heavier metal, such as Lead. Because of this Lead jars or boxes are often used to contain radioactive items, and Lead bricks are used to construct radiation-proof walls where needed.

A very basic radioactive molecule is Tritium, which is a name for Hydrogen-3 (Or Hydrogen with 1 proton, 2 neutrons) has an atomic number (number of Protons) of 1, and will decay into Helium-3(2 protons, 1 neutron), which is a unusual, but not radioactive, isotope of Helium. Helium's atomic number is 2.

This decay isn't linear, meaning it doesn't decay at a set rate of some number of atoms per year, but binary, meaning that by the time half of the material is decayed, it will decay half as fast. Example 1 gram (or any measurement of weight, pound, ounce, doesn't matter) of Hydrogen-3 will take 12.43 years to decay into .5 grams of Hydrogen-3, and .5 grams of Helium-3(This time for half to decay is called it's "Half life". I will reference this later). However if you wait another 12.43 years, you won't have no Tritium at all, but you'll have half the tritium you had 12.43years ago, or .25 grams.

Half lives of elements can range from microseconds for Synthetic elements (Like Lawrencium) to hundreds of millions of years for very lightly radioactive elements (Like Bismuth, which isn't considered radioactive it's radiation level is so low)

Technetium, atomic number 43, which is a Transition Metal, has no stable Isotopes, meaning every form is radioactive. Some Isotopes are short on Neutrons, example Technetium-96,(42 protons, 54 neutrons) so they decay back from atomic number 43 (Technetium) to atomic number 42 (Molybdenum). But some have too many Neutrons, example Technetium-98, so decay up a number to atomic number 44 (Ruthenium).

Notice all Isotopes of technetium decay, but stable elements such as Gold (Atomic number 79), who's common Isotope is Gold-197(79 protons, 117 neutrons), also have isotopes with more or less neutrons that decay up or down one element (Gold-196 decays into Platinum, Gold-198 decays into Mercury)

Some Isotopes of elements are extremely radioactive, so even their decay product (What they decay into) is radioactive, and in turn, decays even further. Some elements have long chains of different elements they decay into, example Radium-222 decays into Radon-222, which decays into Polonium-218, which in turn decays into a stable isotope of Lead.

You can also create synthetic elements by artificially adding neutrons to an atom. In theory, you could take something like Mercury, and add enough neutrons for it to slowly decay into Gold, but the price of this process is far greater than the profit from the Gold produced.

Please notice that I am not a specialist on radioactivity, I only learn enough to understand how my elements work, and to keep my curiosity at bay. There is alot I haven't explained here, I suggest if you want to find out more, simply search "radioactivity" and you should find lots of pages explaining in much greater detail.

Thanks again for reading!

~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

Copper

Copper is a redish shiny metal that is fairly soft, and will bend easily without shattering or cracking. It's melting point is quite high (about 2,000F) so I can only melt small beads of it with my blow torch.

It's atomic symbol is "Cu", atomic number is 29 and it's atomic weight is 63.546 (the atomic weight isn't an exact number because different isotopes(numbers of neutrons) are mixed, most commonly it has 34 Neutrons, but sometimes has 35. Both Isotopes are stable (non radioactive)) It's electron shells(layers) have 2, 8, 18, and 1 electrons in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th shell accordingly.

It sits in the Transition Metals section of the periodic table, right after Nickel and before Zinc. It conducts electricity very well, which is why it's used very commonly in circuit boards and wires. Below it on the periodic table are Silver, then Gold, which both show similar traits to copper being non-reactive(doesn't rust easily), soft, and very good conductors of electricity.

Copper also forms many oxides (rusts) and other salts (compounds) that range from green to blue color, and are so vivid they are sometimes used in dyes and paints(see bottom picture below). The green color of the Statue of Liberty is because of copper in it.

Copper is also used in Alloys, or mixes of metals, because it makes them stronger or better electrical conductors. Most Aluminum is made with a small amount of Copper in it to help it shatter or crack less. Another common alloy is Brass, being a mixture of Copper and Zinc, which is known for a gold color, and is also somewhat corrosion(rust) proof.

These are my copper samples. Top picture, Sample 1:

This is a solid copper ball used in copper-plating, I got it because my dad works for a company that has circuit boards made for them, so I got a tour of the company. These balls are placed in a stainless-steel cage then submerged in acid, and when electricity flows from the balls to whatever they're plating, copper atoms will flow with it resulting in the ball getting smaller and a thin layer of copper appearing on the object being plated. They had a big bucket full of these (at the time they where shinier) and I got to keep one just by asking!

Sample 2:(and picture 2)

This is a giant slab of copper about 1/4" thick, it is very very heavy and has a nice shine to it. I do not know what it was used for, my dad got it as scrap (even though it's worth over $30, might've been cheaper when it was thrown out) at a past job. It's the biggest single piece of copper I've ever held.

Sample 3:

This doesn't look like copper because it is plated in Nickel, but if you scrape it you can see it is solid copper. It was used in a big piece of radio equipment my dad took apart that used high voltage (Copper conducts well). There where 2 of them, but I broke one trying to melt it.

Sample 4:

These are just pieces of electrical wire, used in houses everywhere! I coiled them so they wouldn't be so hard to carry, the bigger one is about 2 feet long if un-coiled.

Sample 5:

This is what is called "Native Copper", because it was found in nature exactly how it is. Most times copper will be found in an "ore", which is just a compound or oxide, but it is sometimes found in pure form such as this.

Sample 6:

United States pennies! These are easily the most commonly seen form of copper, and makes a nice display for any collection like mine. However, pennies minted(made) AFTER 1982 are not pure copper, they have a core made of Zinc and a thin layer of Copper on the outside, because it is cheaper(If you grind or scrape the edges, you will soon see a silvery metal instead of copper). Pennies before this date (the top one in this pic is a 1950, quite rare) are pure copper though, and, oddly enough, worth more than 1 cent.

Sample 7:

This is copper foil, used in arts and crafts. It's easily found in most arts and crafts stores, sold just for it's pleasing color. It can be cut easily with good scissors. Some older houses used copper for roof ridges in a similar form, at a demolition site I once saw a piece about 8" wide, 3 feet long, and much thicker than this, but I wasn't allowed to keep it. Today copper is to expensive for this use($3/pound)

This is Copper Acetate dissolved in water, a good example of the blue colors copper can make. I made this by taking White Vinegar, putting two pieces of Copper in it(not touching each other), then putting electricity(any electricity will do, I used a 6 volt lamp battery, but the more power the faster it will work) between them. If left long enough, the vinegar will turn blue, and this is what's left. You can boil the water off and get a very vivid, light blue-green powder, which is pure copper acetate (not dissolved). NOTE: I do not know if this is poisonous, but I highly suggest you do NOT eat/drink it or get it on your hands right before dinner.

This sums up my post on Copper, any questions or comments gladly accepted and hopefully answered! Feel free to point out anything important I've left out, and I'll try to fix it.

Promo

Some News

I just ordered 122 small glass vials to store my samples in, I won't be able to post gas elements until they get here, as I cannot store them. Because I ordered so many vials, they where relatively cheap per piece, but quite the price for the whole batch, and if anybody needs just one or two, I might consider resale.

I will also be putting a slideshow of a few of my favorite samples on Youtube soon, probably by tomorrow, just to show what's coming. Link will be posted

Also I've put a tab to the right that is my current list of interesting samples I'd like to purchase. Unfortunately, I can afford practically none of them as of now, but most are not necessary samples, merely interesting uses or Isotopes. If you really want to see me get them, you can donate through paypal at the bottom of the list, there is no minimum donation, and everything goes towards this blog.

All the best,

~Ben

Basics of Elements

In this post I will try to explain basically what makes elements unique, and some basic reactions they have with each other, it will help understand phrases I use later on. If you already have somewhat of a grasp on Atomic Physics, feel free to skip most of this.

To start, all of everything is composed of Atoms, which are the smallest possible particle of an element. Atoms consist of a core made of even smaller particles called Protons and Neutrons, and Electrons orbiting around this core. In general, a stable (not exploding or radioactive) Atom has one Electron for every Proton, and near the same number of Neutrons as Protons.

The number of Protons alone defines what element an Atom is, because Neutrons and Electrons can be added or subtracted*. The number of Protons is called the "Atomic number". The numbers of Protons and Neutrons combined is called the "Atomic Mass"(Electrons have practically no weight) , and defines how heavy one atom of the element is (However the weight you feel when picking up a bar of Iron is more defined by how close together the atoms are)

Every element also has an "Atomic Symbol" composed of one, two, or three letters, example H is hydrogen, Li is Lithium, Cu is copper. Only the first letter is capitalized to avoid confusing in formulas like "KHO", one Potassium (Symbol is K) one Hydrogen (H) one Oxygen (O), as opposed to KHo, which would be one Potassium and one Holmium (Ho)

I'll give you some examples of basic atoms:

Above is one of the most basic atoms, a Hydrogen atom. It has one Proton, (Atomic number of 1) no neutrons*, (Atomic mass of 1) and a single electron. Because the inner shell of electrons (The black circle) "wants" to have 2 electrons, hydrogen will bond with only one other atom, because of this normal hydrogen is actually 2 hydrogen atoms bonded together. If you add Oxygen and heat, the Hydrogen atoms will bond to the oxygen instead of each other(Oxygen will bond with 2 other atoms stably), forming water and an explosion! I'll do a longer post on Hydrogen later.

This is a slightly more advanced atom, Carbon. It's core is 6 Protons (Atomic number 6) and 6 Neutrons (Atomic mass 12), and it normally bonds with 4 other atoms. The electron shells (or layers) of this would be written 2, 4.

If you take 4 Hydrogen atoms (Which have one bond each) and 1 Carbon (With 4 bonds), the Hydrogen will surround the Carbon and form a Molecule(any group of atoms) known as Methane gas. If you replace one of the Hydrogens with another Carbon, the added Carbon will take 3 more Hydrogens to fill it's bonds, and form Ethane gas. You can keep adding carbons and making longer chains basically forever! (You might wonder why this comes in handy for element collecting, I use it because I can't always get a pure metal, sometimes I have to settle for a compound(any group of elements) containing it instead.)

*If you add or subtract Neutrons, you're creating a different form (these forms are called "Isotopes") of an element that is either heavier or lighter. You can add(or subtract) Neutrons to any element, and this sometimes makes them Radioactive, meaning they slowly decay into a different element. There are some elements that have NO stable Isotopes, meaning they are always radioactive, no matter how many Neutrons. More on Radioactivity later.

So this is the basics of atoms, there is LOTS more to learn about how they bond, but it doesn't come in handy to much for collecting in specific. If this kind of thing interests you, I highly suggest you research it and find out more! There is much more to learn than what I've listed here.

All for now,

~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