User:Marshallsumter/Radiation astronomy/Alloys

"Three [Swarm] satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) have measured the magnetic field of Earth more precisely than ever before."

Alloys included here may be "a combination of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal", an "admixture", anything "made by combining several things", a "substance made from any combination of ingredients" or "a substance made from the chemical combination of elements".

Explorations (Earth)
"Exploration geology is the single most important and very first phase of mining. It begins by identifying what mineral/minerals is/are to be exploited, their geological setting, approximate size of orebody required and potential areas. Once these factors are considered, funds are required to finance the exploration project. Usually exploration companies list on stock exchanges to raise the required capital. Exploration begins by firstly gathering any possible data available on the resource, area, local geology usually from the geological survey, from satellite imagery as well as previous scientific work. The next phase usually involves geotechnical prospecting which makes use of either seismic, electrical, magnetic, radioactive or density techniques. Once a suitable area has been found, holes are drilled and the core retrieved is logged and correlated against other logs to form a model of the orebody. Once sufficient holes have been drilled and the ore tested for qualities, feasibility studies and due diligence work can commence."

Alloys
Alloys are defined by a metallic bonding character.

Def. a "metal that is a combination of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal" or an "admixture", "instance of admixing [mingling], a mixing-in of something" is called an alloy.

Def. anything "made by combining several things", a "substance formed by chemical union [bonding] of two or more ingredients [elements] in definite proportions by weight", a "substance made from any combination of ingredients", "a substance made from the chemical combination of elements" is called a compound.

Sulfur combines readily with iron to form iron sulfide, which is very brittle, creating weak spots in the steel.

The physical properties, such as density, reactivity, Young's modulus of an alloy may not differ greatly from those of its base element, but engineering properties such as tensile strength, ductility, and shear strength may be substantially different from those of the constituent materials.

Actiniums
AcOF, AcOCl, AcOBr exist.

Aluminums
This flake was discovered, "During a field trip to the NW Rila Mountain in the early 1960s, one of us (V.A.) investigated the desilicated pegmatite apophysis and, from the phlogopite zone (Fig. 1c), collected a rock specimen with a protruding metallic flake visible to the naked eye (Fig. 2) [from which the above image was cropped]."

The designation for native aluminum is Al0 as indicated in, "Here we present data for a unique Al0 flake protruding from the phlogopite matrix of a rock specimen collected from a desilicated pegmatite vein."

Native aluminium metal is extremely rare and can only be found as a minor phase in low oxygen fugacity environments, such as the interiors of certain volcanoes. Native aluminium has been reported in cold seeps in the northeastern continental slope of the South China Sea, where these deposits may have resulted from bacterial reduction of tetrahydroxoaluminate Al(OH)4−.

The second image of native aluminum is shown on the right of this section. The sample is from a mud volcano in the Caspian Sea near Baku, Azerbaidzhan.

The type locality for native aluminum is the Tolbachik volcano, Kamchatka, Russia.

Def. any "intermetallic compound of aluminium and a more electropositive element" is called an aluminide.

The aluminides are those naturally occurring minerals with a high atomic % aluminum.

In the image on the right of a flake of native aluminum, the scale bar = 1 mm.

The typical alloying elements are copper, magnesium, manganese, silicon, tin and zinc.

Aluminium is the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon) in the Earth's crust, and the most abundant metal there. It makes up about 8% by mass of the crust, though it is less common in the mantle below.

As a mineral occurrence, aluminum is mostly an oxide.

Americiums
Sorption of americium at trace levels has been detected on a clay mineral.

Antimonies
. Native antimony such as occurs in the rock on the upper right with its various oxidation products is crystalline in the hexagonal system.

The image on the left shows hexagonal crystals with metallic luster.

Arsenics
. Native arsenic such as in the image on the right occurs in silver ore veins.

"The dominant group V source is arsenic, although antimony and phosphorous sources are not atypical."

Allemontites
Allemontite is a native alloy of arsenic and antimony, with a composition of AsSb.

The first example on the right is from the mineral collection of Brigham Young University Department of Geology, Provo, Utah.

The second on the left is from Příbram, Central Bohemia Region, Bohemia (Böhmen; Boehmen), Czech Republic.

As a natural source of arsenic, it has 50 at % arsenic.

Astatines
Astatine iodide has the chemical formula AtI. Astatine bromide has the chemical formula AtBr. Astatine monochloride (AtCl) is made either by the direct combination of gas-phase astatine with chlorine or by the sequential addition of astatine and dichromate ion to an acidic chloride solution.

Uraninites
All of the known isotopes of astatine are very short-lived. Astatine occurs naturally in minerals such as uraninite as a decay product of uranium.

Bariums
Barium is bcc (α-Ba) at room temperature as the phase diagram on the left indicates. It does change to an hcp structure at high pressures and temperatures.

Native barium is not known to occur on the surface of the Earth.

Berkeliums
Like americium and curium it "is possible that some berkelium and other transuranic elements were created in the natural nuclear reactor in Oklo, Gabon."

A natural nuclear fission reactor is a uranium mineral deposit where self-sustaining nuclear chain reactions have occurred. This can be examined by analysis of isotope ratios. The existence of this phenomenon was discovered in 1972 at Oklo in Gabon, Africa. Oklo is the only known location for this in the world and consists of 16 sites at which self-sustaining nuclear fission reactions took place approximately 1.7 billion years ago, and ran for a few hundred thousand years, averaging 100 kW of thermal power during that time.

Berylliums
Beryllium has at least six emission/absorption lines across the red.

The emission and absorption spectra for beryllium contain lines in the blue.

Beryllium occurs in a hexgonal close-packed (hcp) crystal structure at room temperature (α-Be).

As indicated in the phase diagram on the left beryllium occurs as (β-Be) which is bcc at higher temperatures up to melting.

Native beryllium is not known to occur on the surface of the Earth, but may eventually be found among beryllium-bearing minerals in small amounts.

Beryllium copper (BeCu), also known as copper beryllium (CuBe), beryllium bronze and spring copper, is a copper alloy with 0.5–3% beryllium, but can contain other elements as well. Beryllium can be alloyed with nickel and aluminum.

Bismuths
Bismuth does occur on Earth as native bismuth exampled on the right.

"Strong absorption lines due to Bi II have been found in the Hg—Mn star HR7775 (HD193452) in high-resolution spectra obtained with the IUE."

"Detailed examination of the optical spectrum at high resolution1 showed that it is one of the most extreme stars of the ‘cool’ Hg—Mn group, with strong enhancements of Hg, Pt, Sr, Y, and Ga; the last of these is confirmed2 by the very strong Ga II resonance line at 1,414 Å. Four-colour Strömgren photometry of HR7775 (ref. 3), interpreted with the aid of the model atmosphere calibrations by Relyea and Kurucz4, gives Teff = 10,800 K, log g = 4.2, while the Hβ index gives log g = 4.0 according to the calibration of Schmidt5."

Bohriums
Chemistry experiments have confirmed that bohrium behaves as the heavier homologue to rhenium in group 7. The chemical properties of bohrium are characterized only partly, but they compare well with the chemistry of the other group 7 elements.

Borons
. Boron is synthesized entirely by cosmic ray spallation and supernovae and not by stellar nucleosynthesis, so it is a low-abundance element in the Solar System and in the Earth's crust. It constitutes about 0.001 percent by weight of Earth's crust. It is concentrated on Earth by the water-solubility of its more common naturally occurring compounds, the borate mineral such as borax and kernite.

Elemental boron is a metalloid that is found in small amounts in meteoroids but chemically uncombined boron is not otherwise found naturally on Earth.

The "presence in ... cosmic radiation [is] of a much greater proportion of "secondary" nuclei, such as lithium, beryllium and boron, than is found generally in the universe."

Qingsongites
Qingsongite is a rare boron nitride (BN) mineral with cubic crystalline form first described in 2009 for an occurrence as minute inclusions within chromite deposits in the Luobusa ophiolite in the Shannan Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It was recognized as a mineral in August 2013 by the International Mineralogical Association named after Chinese geologist Qingsong Fang (1939–2010).

Qingsongite is the only known boron mineral that is formed deep in the Earth's mantle. Associated minerals or phases include osbornite (titanium nitride), coesite, kyanite and amorphous carbon.

Wurtzite BN
Only small amounts of the wurtzite form of boron nitride (w-BN) exist in nature as a mineral.

Cadmiums
The only cadmium mineral of importance, greenockite (CdS), is nearly always associated with sphalerite (ZnS).

Cadmium is used in the control rods of nuclear reactors, acting as a very effective neutron poison to control neutron flux in nuclear fission. When cadmium rods are inserted in the core of a nuclear reactor, cadmium absorbs neutrons, preventing them from creating additional fission events, thus controlling the amount of reactivity. The pressurized water reactor designed by Westinghouse Electric Company uses an alloy consisting of 80% silver, 15% indium, and 5% cadmium.

In Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), cadmium was used as heat, light, and weathering stabilizers. Cadmium is used in many kinds of solder and bearing alloys, because it has a low coefficient of friction and fatigue resistance. It is also found in some of the lowest-melting alloys, such as Wood's metal.

Caesiums
As the temperature-pressure diagram on the left shows, caesium (formerly cesium) is bcc (α-Cs) from room temperature up to melting.

Native caesium does not appear to occur on the surface of the Earth or the Moon.

Calciums
. Calcium has a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure at room temperature.

As shown in the phase diagram on the left, it does not change structure up to melting.

Native calcium is not known to occur on the surface of the Earth.

Californiums
It forms alloys with lanthanide metals.

The element has two crystalline forms at standard atmospheric pressure: a double-hexagonal close-packed form dubbed alpha (α) and a face-centered cubic form designated beta (β). A double hexagonal close-packed (dhcp) unit cell consists of two hexagonal close-packed structures that share a common hexagonal plane, giving dhcp an ABACABAC sequence. The α form exists below 600–800 °C with a density of 15.10 g/cm3 and the β form exists above 600–800 °C with a density of 8.74 g/cm3. At 48 GPascal of pressure the β form changes into an orthorhombic crystal system due to delocalization of the atom's 5f electrons, which frees them to bond. The three lower-mass transplutonium elements—americium, curium, and berkelium—require much less pressure to delocalize their 5f electrons.

Carbons
. Carbonides are naturally occurring minerals composed of 50 atomic percent, or more, carbon. Carbonide-like minerals with greater than 25 at % carbon are also included. This separates carbon containing minerals from carbonates which are at most 25 at % carbon.

Carbon has an emission line in plasmas at 529.053 nm from C VI.

Ceriums
The pyrophoric alloy known as "mischmetal" is composed of 50% cerium, 25% lanthanum, and the remainder being the other lanthanides, that is used widely for lighter flints. Usually iron is added to form the alloy ferrocerium (a synthetic pyrophoric alloy of "mischmetal": cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, other trace lanthanides and some iron – about 95% lanthanides and 5% iron hardened by blending in oxides of iron and / or magnesium).

Cerium is used as alloying element in aluminum to create castable eutectic aluminum alloys with 6–16 wt.% Ce, to which Mg and/or Si can be further added, which have excellent high temperature strength and are suitable for automotive applications e.g. in cylinder heads. Other alloys of cerium include Pu-Ce and Pu-Ce-Co plutonium alloys, which have been used as nuclear fuel.

Chromiums
. Native chromium such as the nugget in the image on the right is very rare. It is also a hard mineral, probably because of an oxide coating giving it a slight bluish cast.

"An unusual mineral association (diamond, SiC, graphite, native chromium, Ni-Fe alloy, Cr2+-bearing chromite), indicating a high-pressure, reducing environment, occurs in both the peridotites and chromitites."

As the phase diagram for the Fe-Cr system on the left shows, chromium is bcc from 600°C on up to melting. Chromium is also bcc at room temperature and pressure.

Cobalts
. Cobalt has a hexagonal close-packed structure (hcp) until about 450°C when a fcc structure begins to appear.

On the right is a scanning electron micrograph of native cobalt from the Luna 24 landing site, Mare Crisium, The Moon.

Coperniciums
Very few properties of copernicium or its compounds have been measured; this is due to its extremely limited and expensive production and the fact that copernicium (and its parents) decays very quickly.

Coppers
. The most advantageous form for copper is native copper.

On the right is a large, sculptural specimen of penny-bright copper from Arizona.

"Approximately five million tonnes were mined from native copper deposits in Michigan. Copper masses from the Michigan deposits were transported by the Pleistocene glaciers. Areas on the copper surfaces which appear to represent glacial abrasion show minimal corrosion."

"A group of pixel areas north of Lake Superior [in the Landsat image on the right] take the form of a linear band which lies along the northern edge of the Port Coldwell Complex (D). [...] there are numerous Cu showings along the northern edge of the Port Coldwell complex (Ontario Division of Mines, 1971)."

Curiums
"Curium is a radioactive transuranic element that has only been produced in nuclear reactors. It is possible that some curium and other transuranic elements were created in the natural nuclear reactor in Oklo, Gabon."

Darmstadiums
The only known darmstadtium isotope with a half-life long enough for chemical research is 281Ds, which would have to be produced as the granddaughter of 289Fl.

Dubniums
Dubnium was processed in nitric and hydrofluoric acid solution, at concentrations where niobium forms and tantalum forms, where dubnium's behavior was close to that of niobium but not tantalum; it was thus deduced that dubnium formed , it was concluded that dubnium often behaved like niobium, sometimes like protactinium, but rarely like tantalum.

Dysprosiums
"The magnetic and structural properties of the neodymium-dysprosium alloy system have been measured over the entire composition range."

Einsteiniums
Einsteinium is a soft, silvery, paramagnetic metal with chemistry typical of the late actinides, with a preponderance of the +3 oxidation state; the +2 oxidation state is also accessible, especially in solids.

Erbiums
When added to vanadium as an alloy, erbium lowers hardness and improves workability. An erbium-nickel alloy Er3Ni has an unusually high specific heat capacity at liquid-helium temperatures.

"Along with uranium, zinc, iron ore, copper and gold, Greenland’s ancient rocks also harbor large quantities of those minerals known as “rare earth,” among them lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praesodymium, terbium and yttrium."

Europiums
The "aluminum−boron−europium ternary alloy fuels with boron content of 1.5∼4.85 wt. % and europium content of 3 wt. % were prepared."

Fermiums
In the image at the right a fermium-ytterbium alloy is shown.

Flevoriums
About 90 flerovium atoms have been seen: 58 were synthesized directly; the rest were from radioactive decay of heavier elements.

Franciums
Francium is bcc at room temperature. Outside the laboratory, francium is extremely rare, with trace amounts found in uranium and thorium ores, where the isotope francium-223 continually forms and decays.

Francium chloride has been studied as a pathway to separate francium from other elements, by using the high vapour pressure of the compound, although francium fluoride would have a higher vapour pressure.

Gadoliniums
Gadolinium metal is only slightly malleable and is a ductile rare-earth element.

Gadolinium demonstrates a magnetocaloric effect whereby its temperature increases when it enters a magnetic field and decreases when it leaves the magnetic field. The temperature is lowered to 5 C for the gadolinium alloy Gd85Er15, and this effect is considerably stronger for the alloy Gd5(Si2Ge2), but at a much lower temperature (<85 K). A significant magnetocaloric effect is observed at higher temperatures, up to about 300 K, in the compounds Gd5(SixGe1−x)4.

Galliums
While native gallium would be the best source of gallium, it apparently does not occur on Earth. The image on the right is a drop of liquid gallium.

Gallium "enrichments are observed in the deep waters of the Norwegian Sea and Iceland Basin."

"If northern deep water formation occurs at lower latitudes during glacial periods, the amount of sediment resuspension in the formation areas is likely to be affected with concomitant effects on the trace element content of newly formed northern-source deep waters."

"At higher growth temperatures(>600'C) the lifetimes of the alkyl-gallium species are much shorter and the growth front dynamics should begin to look more like MBE since atomic gallium will be the dominant group III surface species."

Gallite (CuGaS2) is 25 at % gallium.

Germaniums
The sample of germanite on the right has a composition of Cu26Fe4Ge4S32. Generally, germanite has a composition closer to Cu3(Ge, Ga, Fe, Zn) (S,As)4. "This sample also contains tennantite."

Golds
Gold (Au) is the most prestigious metal known, but it's not the most valuable. Gold is the only metal that has a deep, rich, metallic yellow color. Almost all other metals are silvery-colored. Gold is very rare in crustal rocks - it averages about 5 ppb (parts per billion). Where gold has been concentrated, it occurs as wires, dendritic crystals, twisted sheets, octahedral crystals, and variably-shaped nuggets. It most commonly occurs in hydrothermal quartz veins, disseminated in some contact- & hydrothermal-metamorphic rocks, and in placer deposits. Placers are concentrations of heavy minerals in stream gravels or in cracks on bedrock-floored streams. Gold has a high specific gravity (about 19), so it easily accumulates in placer deposits. Its high density allows prospectors to readily collect placer gold by panning.

Hafniums
Note in the iron-hafnium phase diagram on the left that hafnium occurs in two phases: hcp (α-Hf) at lower temperatures and bcc (β-Hf) at higher temperatures up to melting.

Hafnium is used in alloys with iron, titanium, niobium, tantalum, and other metals, for example the main engine of the Apollo Lunar Modules, is C103 which consists of 89% niobium, 10% hafnium and 1% titanium.

Small additions of hafnium increase the adherence of protective oxide scales on nickel-based alloys, improving thereby the corrosion resistance especially under cyclic temperature conditions that tend to break oxide scales by inducing thermal stresses between the bulk material and the oxide layer.

Hassiums
Hassium behaves as the heavier homologue to osmium, reacting readily with oxygen to form a volatile tetroxide.

Holmiums
"The constant of the alloy-formation rate for, which was obtained in [22] at 1023 K in the LiCl–KCl eutectic melt, is 0.36 kg/m2 h0.5."

Indiums
Indium is an ingredient in the gallium–indium–tin alloy galinstan, which is liquid at room temperature and replaces mercury in some thermometers. Other alloys of indium with bismuth, cadmium, lead, and tin, which have higher but still low melting points (between 50 and 100 °C), are used in fire sprinkler systems and heat regulators.

"Indium minerals are very rare ; only 7 species have been defined so far : roquesite, CuInS2 (Picot & Pierrot, 1963) ; indite, FeIn2S4, and dzhalindite, In(OH)3 (Genkin & Murav'eva, 1963) ; sakuraiite, (Cu,Fe,Zn)3(In,Sn)S4 (Kato, 1965) ; native indium (Ivanov, 1966b) ; yixunite, PtIn (Yu Tsu-Hsiang et al., 1976) ; petrukite, (Cu,Fe,Zn,Ag)3(Sn,In)S4 (Kissin & Owens, 1989)."

On the right are microprobe fragments of native indium from Eastern Transbaikal, Russia. The electron microprobe confirms that indium is the only component of the metallic phase.

Iridiums
Native iridium such as the small cubic crystal shown in the image on the right is rare.

An alloy of iridium with ruthenium in thermocouples allowed for the measurement of high temperatures in air up to 2000 C.

Iridium is found in nature as an uncombined element or in natural alloys; especially the iridium–osmium alloys, osmiridium (osmium-rich), and iridosmium (iridium-rich).

Irons
. The polished piece on the top right displays inclusions of native iron.

Iron occurs in several allotropes from α-Fe which has a body-centered cubic structure (bcc) at room temperature up to 910°C, γ-Fe which has a face-centered cubic (fcc) structure from 910°C to 1394°C, and δ-Fe (bcc) from 1394°C to 1538°C. Hexagonal close-packed (hcp) iron occurs at high pressures and temperatures as ε-Fe.

Austenite, also known as gamma-phase iron (γ-Fe), is a metallic, non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron, with an alloying element. In plain-carbon steel, austenite exists above the critical eutectoid temperature of 1000 K (727 °C); other alloys of steel have different eutectoid temperatures. The austenite allotrope is named after Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen (1843–1902); it exists at room temperature in some stainless steels due to the presence of nickel stabilizing the austenite at lower temperatures.

Iron hydrides
"Carroll and McCormack (1972) in Dublin reported complex spectra in the blue and green wavelength regions of both FeH and FeD".

"Carroll et al. (1976) detected a number of coincidences between laboratory lines of FeH and weak unidentified solar lines, again in the blue and green wavelength region, in addition to the infrared."

Lanthanums
Hydrogen sponge alloys can contain lanthanum and are capable of storing up to 400 times their own volume of hydrogen gas in a reversible adsorption process, where heat energy is released every time they do so; therefore these alloys have possibilities in energy conservation systems.

Mischmetal, a pyrophoric alloy used in lighter flints, contains 25% to 45% lanthanum.

Lawrenciums
The first ionization energy of lawrencium was measured, using the isotope 256Lr. The measured value, 4.96$+0.08 −0.07$ electronvolt (eV), agreed very well with the relativistic theoretical prediction of 4.963(15) eV, and also provided a first step into measuring the first ionization energies of the transactinides. This value is the lowest among all the lanthanides and actinides, and supports the s2p configuration as the 7p1/2 electron is expected to be only weakly bound. This suggests that lutetium and lawrencium behave similarly to the d-block elements (and hence being the true heavier congeners of scandium and yttrium, instead of lanthanum and actinium). Although some alkali metal-like behaviour has been predicted, adsorption experiments suggest that lawrencium is trivalent like scandium and yttrium, not monovalent like the alkali metals.

Leads
. "Diamond cubic structures with lattice parameters around the lattice parameter of silicon exists both in thin lead and tin films, and in massive lead and tin, freshly solidified in vacuum of ≈5 x 10-6 Torr. Experimental evidence for almost identical structures of at least three oxide types is presented, demonstrating that lead and tin behave like silicon not only in the initial stages of crystallization, but also in the initial stages of oxidation."

The piece of native lead on the right shows a relatively sharp, and well-formed cuboctahedron of Lead at the top of the specimen, which is associated with elongated crystals on the base and back.

Its source locality is Långban, Filipstad, Värmland, Sweden.

A fresh surface of high purity lead on the left is silvery in appearance.

Lead tin telluride, PbSnTe or Pb1−xSnxTe, is a ternary alloy of lead, tin and tellurium, generally made by alloying either tin into lead telluride or lead into tin Telluride.

In genuine Ashtadhatu, all eight metals (Au, Ag, Cu, Pb, Zn, Sn, Fe and Sb or Hg) are in equal proportion (12.5% each).

Sn, Pb, Cu, As, Sb are used to make Babbitt alloys. "The inner parts of the boxes are to be lined with any of the harder kinds of composition known under the names of britannia metal or pewter, of which block tin is the basis. An excellent compound for this purpose I have prepared by taking about 50 parts of tin, five of antimony, and one of copper, but I do not intend to confine myself to this particular composition."

Lithiums
. "[T]he standard solar models have enjoyed tremendous success recently in terms of agreement between the predicted outer structure and the results from helioseismology[, but] some observed properties of the Sun still defy explanation, such as the degree of Li depletion" [the "solar Li abundance is roughly a factor of 200 below the meteoritic abundance"].

Livermoriums
Although generated by heavy ion bombardment, the short-lived radioisotopes are not known to occur naturally on the surface of the Earth.

Lutetiums
Scandium, yttrium, and lutetium tend to occur together with the other lanthanides (except short-lived promethium) in the Earth's crust, and are often harder to extract from their ores.

Magnesiums
Magnesium has a hcp structure from room temperature up to melting. No other phases occur as is shown in the magnesium-end of the iron-magnesium phase diagram on the left.

Native magnesium is unlikely to occur on the surface of the Earth and is not known to occur.

Magnesium (Mg I) has an absorption band at 416.727±2.9 nm with an excitation potential of 4.33 eV.

Magnesium (Mg II) has an absorption band at 439.059±6.6 nm with an excitation potential of 9.96 eV.

Manganeses
. If native manganese occurs on Earth or nearby Solar System bodies, it likely occurs as bcc α-Mn.

"Beta manganese has a cubic crystal structure with space group P4132 [1]. The unit cell contains 20 atoms, divided between two non-equivalent sites."

"The structures of γ- and δ-manganese are found to be face-centred cubic and body-centred cubic respectively."

Manganese (Mn I) has two absorption bands at 403.449±1.4 nm and 405.554±0.8 nm, where the second has an excitation potential of 2.13 eV.

Manganese (Mn II) has an absorption band at 420.638±0.8 nm with an excitation potential of 5.37 eV.

Meitneriums
Meitnerium is the seventh member of the 6d series of transition metals, and should be much like the platinum group metals. Calculations on its ionization potentials and atomic radius and ionic radii are similar to that of its lighter homologue iridium, thus implying that meitnerium's basic properties will resemble those of the other group 9 elements, cobalt, rhodium, and iridium.

Mendeleviums
Seventeen isotopes of mendelevium are known, with mass numbers from 244 to 260; all are radioactive. Additionally, five nuclear isomers are known: 245mMd, 247mMd, 249mMd, 254mMd, and 258mMd. Of these, the longest-lived isotope is 258Md with a half-life of 51.5 days, and the longest-lived isomer is 258mMd with a half-life of 58.0 minutes. Nevertheless, the shorter-lived 256Md (half-life 1.17 hours) is more often used in chemical experimentation because it can be produced in larger quantities from alpha particle irradiation of einsteinium.

Metalloids
Metalloids are elements whose properties are intermediate between metals and solid nonmetals or semiconductors.

A variety of elements are often considered metalloids:
 * 1) boron, considered here in Borons,
 * 2) aluminum, a face-centered cubic metal, considered in Aluminums,
 * 3) silicon, here in Silicons,
 * 4) gallium, here in Galliums,
 * 5) germanium, here in Germaniums,
 * 6) arsenic, here in Arsenics,
 * 7) selenium, here in Seleniums, also included in the chalcogens,
 * 8) indium, here in Indiums,
 * 9) tin, here in Tins,
 * 10) antimony, here in Antimonies,
 * 11) tellurium, here in Telluriums, also included in the chalcogens,
 * 12) polonium, here in Poloniums, and
 * 13) astatine, here in Astatines, with the halogens.

Moscoviums
The moscovium isotopes 288Mc, 289Mc, and 290Mc may be chemically investigated with current methods, although their short half-lives would make this challenging. Moscovium is the heaviest element that has known isotopes that are long-lived enough for chemical experimentation.

Molybdenums
The electron micrograph on the right shows a couple of pieces of native molybdenum found in lunar regolith at the Luna 24 landing site after transport back to Earth and analysis.

The phase diagram for the iron-molybdenum system demonstrates that molybdenum is bcc (α-Mo) for its intermediate and higher temperatures. It's also bcc at room temperature.

Molybdenum can withstand extreme temperatures without significantly expanding or softening, making it useful in environments of intense heat.

Neodymiums
Thorianite contains the oxides of uranium, lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium and neodymium.

"Along with uranium, zinc, iron ore, copper and gold, Greenland’s ancient rocks also harbor large quantities of those minerals known as “rare earth,” among them lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praesodymium, terbium and yttrium."

Neodymium is in the alloys used to make high-strength neodymium magnets—a type of powerful permanent magnet.

To make neodymium magnets it is alloyed with iron, which is a ferromagnet.

Neodymium magnets, an alloy, Nd2Fe14B, are the strongest permanent magnets known and tend to corrode.

Neptuniums
The image at the right shows a rock with the mineral Aeschynite approximately centered above the biotite mica. Aeschynite "probably contains on the order of a few atoms of neptunium at any one time, as part of the complex decay chain of the uranium that makes up a much larger fraction of the sample."

Pure neptunium is paramagnetic, NpAl3 is ferromagnetic, NpGe3 has no magnetic ordering, and NpSn3 behaves fermionically.

Nickels
. Nickel has an emission line occurring in the solar corona at 511.603 nm from Ni XIII.

Nickel has an emission line occurring in the solar corona at 670.183 nm from Ni XV.

Nickel has three emission lines occurring in the solar corona at 380.08 nm of Ni XIII and 423.14 nm and 431.1 of Ni XII.

Nickel has an absorption band at 401.550-436.210 nm with an excitation potential of 4.01 eV.

Antitaenite is a meteoritic metal alloy mineral composed of iron and nickel, 20-40% Ni (and traces of other elements).

Breithauptite is a nickel antimonide mineral with the simple formula NiSb.

Niccolite has the chemical formula NiAs.

Nihoniums
Stability of a nucleus is provided by the strong interaction. However, its range is very short; as nuclei become larger, their influence on the outermost nucleons (protons and neutrons) weakens. At the same time, the nucleus is torn apart by electrostatic repulsion between protons, as it has unlimited range. Nuclei of the heaviest elements are thus theoretically predicted and have so far been observed to primarily decay via decay modes that are caused by such repulsion: alpha decay and spontaneous fission; not all decay modes are caused by electrostatic repulsion. For example, beta decay is caused by the weak interaction. these modes are predominant for nuclei of superheavy elements. Alpha decays are registered by the emitted alpha particles, and the decay products are easy to determine before the actual decay; if such a decay or a series of consecutive decays produces a known nucleus, the original product of a reaction can be determined arithmetically. Since mass of a nucleus is not measured directly but is rather calculated from that of another nucleus, such measurement is called indirect. Direct measurements are also possible, but for the most part they have remained unavailable for heaviest nuclei. The first direct measurement of mass of a superheavy nucleus was reported in 2018 at LBNL. Mass was determined from the location of a nucleus after the transfer (the location helps determine its trajectory, which is linked to the mass-to-charge ratio of the nucleus, since the transfer was done in presence of a magnet). Spontaneous fission, however, produces various nuclei as products, so the original nuclide cannot be determined from its daughters. a leading scientist at JINR, and thus it was a "hobbyhorse" for the facility. In contrast, the LBL scientists believed fission information was not sufficient for a claim of synthesis of an element. They believed spontaneous fission had not been studied enough to use it for identification of a new element, since there was a difficulty of establishing that a compound nucleus had only ejected neutrons and not charged particles like protons or alpha particles. They thus preferred to link new isotopes to the already known ones by successive alpha decays.

Nihonium monofluorides
The analogous monofluoride (NhF) should also exist.

Nihonium monohydrides
The simplest possible nihonium compound is the monohydride, NhH. The bonding is provided by the 7p1/2 electron of nihonium and the 1s electron of hydrogen. The SO interaction causes the binding energy of nihonium monohydride to be reduced by about 1 eV and the nihonium–hydrogen bond length to decrease as the bonding 7p1/2 orbital is relativistically contracted. This is unique among the 7p element monohydrides; all the others have relativistic expansion of the bond length instead of contraction. Another effect of the SO interaction is that the Nh–H bond is expected to have significant pi bonding character (side-on orbital overlap), unlike the almost pure sigma bonding (head-on orbital overlap) in thallium monohydride (TlH).

Nihonium monoiodides
Nihonium(I) is predicted to be more similar to silver(I) than thallium(I): the Nh+ ion is expected to more willingly bind anions, so that NhCl should be quite soluble in excess hydrochloric acid or ammonia; thallium(I) chloride (TlCl) is not. In contrast to Tl+, which forms the strongly basic hydroxide (thallium(I) hydroxide (TlOH)) in solution, the Nh+ cation should instead hydrolyse all the way to the amphoteric oxide Nh2O, which would be soluble in aqueous ammonia and weakly soluble in water.

Niobiums
As can be seen in the iron-niobium phase diagram on the left, niobium is single phase (α-Nb) up to its melting temperature. This is a bcc structure.

Ferroniobium is an alloy of 60–70% niobium with iron, where niobium is used mostly in alloy steel. Niobium is used in various superconducting materials, Type-II superconductor alloys, also containing titanium and tin. Quantities of niobium are used in nickel-, cobalt-, and iron-based superalloys in proportions as great as 6.5%.

It appears to be the case that native niobium does not occur in the surface rocks on Earth.

Carlsbergites
Carlsbergite was first described in the Agpalilik fragment of the Cape York meteorite.

It is a chromium nitride mineral (CrN), named after the Carlsberg Foundation that backed the recovery of the Agpalilik fragment from the Cape York meteorite.

It occurs in meteorites along the grain boundaries of kamacite or troilite in the form of tiny plates, associated with kamacite, taenite, daubreelite, troilite and sphalerite.

Nobeliums
A nobelium atom has 102 electrons, of which three can act as valence electrons. They are expected to be arranged in the configuration [Rn]5f147s2 (ground state term symbol 1S0), although experimental verification of this electron configuration had not yet been made as of 2006. In forming compounds, all the three valence electrons may be lost, leaving behind a [Rn]5f13 core: this conforms to the trend set by the other actinides with their [Rn]5fn electron configurations in the tripositive state. Nevertheless, it is more likely that only two valence electrons may be lost, leaving behind a stable [Rn]5f14 core with a filled 5f14 shell. The first ionization potential of nobelium was measured to be at most (6.65 ± 0.07) eV in 1974, based on the assumption that the 7s electrons would ionize before the 5f ones; this value has not yet been refined further due to nobelium's scarcity and high radioactivity. The ionic radius of hexacoordinate and octacoordinate No3+ had been preliminarily estimated in 1978 to be around 90 and 102 pm respectively; the ionic radius of No2+ has been experimentally found to be 100 pm to two significant figures. The enthalpy of hydration of No2+ has been calculated as 1486 kJ/mol.

Oganessons
Although oganesson is a member of group 18 (the noble gases) – the first synthetic element to be so – it may be significantly reactive, unlike all the other elements of that group. It was formerly thought to be a gas under standard conditions for temperature and pressure but is now predicted to be a solid due to relativistic effects.

Osmiums
The crystal of native osmium shown on the right is about 2 mm across.

Osmium alloys with platinum, iridium, and other platinum-group metals.

Palladiums
"Natural Palladium [like the nugget shown on the right] always contains some Platinum."

This palladium nugget is from Bom Sucesso Creek, Serro, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

"(Pd,Cu) alloys, some with the approximate composition PdCu4, are reported by Kapsiotis et al. (2010)."

The piece of native palladium [image on the left] from the Mednorudyanskoye Cu Deposit, Nizhnii Tagil, Sverdlovskaya Oblast', Middle Urals, Urals Region, Russia, probably contains some copper.

Palladium can be found as a free metal alloyed with gold and other platinum-group metals in placer deposits of the Ural Mountains, Australia, Ethiopia, North and South America.

Palladium is found in the rare minerals cooperite and polarite. Many more Pd minerals are known, but all of them are very rare.

Potarites
Potarite has the chemical formula PdHg.

On the right is a piece of potarite is from Serro, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Phosphoruses
Phosphorus has several allotropes that exhibit strikingly diverse properties. The two most common allotropes are white phosphorus and red phosphorus.

Violet phosphorus is a form of phosphorus that can be produced by day-long annealing of red phosphorus above 550 °C, when phosphorus was recrystallised from molten lead, a red/purple form is obtained, sometimes known as "Hittorf's phosphorus" (or violet or α-metallic phosphorus).

"It would appear that violet phosphorus is a polymer of high relative molecular mass, which on heating breaks down into P2 molecules. On cooling, these would normally dimerize to give P4 molecules (i.e. white phosphorus) but, in vacuo, they link up again to form the polymeric violet allotrope."

Phosphorus is an important component in steel production, in the making of phosphor bronze, and in many other related products.

Phosphorus is added to metallic copper during its smelting process to react with oxygen present as an impurity in copper and to produce phosphorus-containing copper (CuOFP) alloys with a higher hydrogen embrittlement resistance than normal copper.

Platinums
Platinum can also occur as nuggets such as the one imaged on the right from Russia.

"Terrestrial iron-free rhodium-bearing platinum with the composition of Pt0.68Rh0.32 in association with platinum-bearing rhodium Rh0.57Pt0.43 [...] was originally discovered in heavy fractions from basic rocks (norite, gabbro, and anorthosite) in the upper zone of the layered Stillwater intrusion (Montana, United States) [2]."

In nickel and copper deposits, platinum-group metals occur as sulfides (e.g., (Pt,Pd)S), tellurides (e.g., PtBiTe), antimonides (PdSb), and arsenides (e.g. PtAs2), and as end alloys with nickel or copper.

Cooperites
This specimen on the right is a single nugget from Tulameen River, Princeton, British Columbia, Canada.

Plutoniums
"The sample [on the right] representing plutonium is the naturally occurring mineral muromontite, which is a mixture of uranium and beryllium. [The] alpha particles from the decay of uranium are captured by the beryllium atoms, which in turn release neutrons. [...] In the case of this sample, [...] the neutrons are in turn re-captured by the uranium, which then undergoes further decay and is transformed into plutonium. The result is that this mineral contains the highest known naturally occurring concentration of plutonium."

Gallium, aluminium, americium, scandium and cerium can stabilize the δ phase of plutonium for room temperature, silicon, indium, zinc and zirconium allow formation of metastable δ state when rapidly cooled, high amounts of hafnium, holmium and thallium also allows some retention of the δ phase at room temperature, but nNeptunium is the only element that can stabilize the α phase at higher temperatures.

Poloniums
α-Po crystallizes in a simple cubic lattice.

Native polonium may occur in minerals like pitchblende due to the decay of uranium. But, when the uranium is chemically bound, the polonium is likely to be also.

β-Po has a rhombohedral (trigonal) crystal structure.

"Solid diorite and gabbro rock, which had previously crystallized from magma, has been subjected to repeated cataclasis and recrystallization. This has happened without melting; and the cataclasis provided openings for the introduction of uranium-bearing fluids and for the modification of these rocks to granite by silication and cation deletion."

"In uranium ore-fields the extra uranium provides an abundant source of inert radon gas; and it is this gas that diffuses in ambient fluids so that incipient biotite and fluorite crystallization is exposed to it. Radon (222Rn) decays and Po isotopes nucleate in the rapidly growing biotite (and fluorite) crystals whence they are positioned to produce the Po halos."

On the lower right is a photograph showing radioactive decay halos along a crack in biotite.

On the left is an example of groundwater incursion that has moved through a nearby fault. The groundwater has picked up dissolved uranium compounds and moved downward through adjacent porous sandstones. Uraninite then precipitated around a tongue of groundwater, resulting in the roll front seen in the image on the left.

Potassiums
As indicated in the phase diagram on the left, potassium occurs in a bcc (α-K) phase from room temperature up to melting.

Native potassium does not appear to occur on the Earth's surface.

"The group [of potassium lines] at λλ 535, 510, and 495 Å showed no trace of structure even in an arc of but half an ampere."

Praseodymiums
Po-BeO mixtures or alloys used as neutron sources are a neutron trigger or initiator for nuclear weapons and for inspections of oil wells.

The polonide of praseodymium (PrPo) melts at 1250 °C, and that of thulium (TmPo) melts at 2200 °C. PbPo is one of the very few naturally occurring polonium compounds, as polonium alpha decays to form lead.

Protactiniums
Protactinium is one of the rarest and most expensive naturally occurring elements, found in the form of two isotopes – 231Pa and 234Pa, with the isotope 234Pa occurring in two different energy states: nearly all natural protactinium is protactinium-231, an alpha emitter formed by the decay of uranium-235, whereas the beta radiating protactinium-234 is produced as a result of uranium-238 decay. Nearly all uranium-238 (99.8%) decays first to the shorter-lived 234mPa isomer.

Radiums
"Solid radium is bcc at room temperature. Radium melts at 973 K.63"

Radium oxide (RaO) has not been characterized well past its existence, despite oxides being common compounds for the other alkaline earth metals.

Rheniums
"Native rhenium was first discovered in the Earth's crust in wolframites from a rare metal deposit in the Transbaikal region [1]. [...] The study of the lunar regolith from two sites revealed native rhenium particles with different morphological features: irregular dense particles from Mare Fecunditatis and spheroidal particles from Mare Crisium. The origin of particles (less than 10 µm in size) is assigned to exhalative processes [2]. Among the extraterrestrial objects, native rhenium was found in Ni-iron and silicates from the Allende meteorite [3]."

"Solid radium is bcc at room temperature. Radium melts at 973 K.63"

"Instrumental neutron activation analyses of Kilauean aerosols collected in 1984 show Ir:Au:Re ratios of 1:12:2000 normalized to CI chondrites. The large Re enrichment in these volcanic aerosols may explain the 3 to 15-fold Re excess, relative to chondritic, in the observed siderophile element signature of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary clay layer.2,3 Strong evidence exists that an impact of an extraterrestrial body on the Earth caused mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous period.4,5 ... A Kilauean aerosol contribution of only 0.01 % of the chondritic component in the boundary clay layer would produce the observed Re enrichments."

Rhodiums
The image on the right contains small particles of native rhodium-bearing ferroplatinum. This sample was obtained from the lunar regolith "by the Luna-16 automatic station".

"Terrestrial iron-free rhodium-bearing platinum with the composition of Pt0.68Rh0.32 in association with platinum-bearing rhodium Rh0.57Pt0.43 [...] was originally discovered in heavy fractions from basic rocks (norite, gabbro, and anorthosite) in the upper zone of the layered Stillwater intrusion (Montana, United States) [2]."

Naturally occurring rhodium is usually found as a free metal or as an alloy with similar metals and rarely as a chemical compound in minerals such as bowieite and rhodplumsite.

Rhodium is used as an alloying agent for hardening and improving the corrosion resistance. of platinum and palladium.

Roentgeniums
"Based on the observation of the long-lived isotopes of roentgenium, 261Rg and 265Rg (Z = 111, t1/2 ≥ 108 y) in natural Au, an experiment was performed to enrich Rg in 99.999% Au. 16 mg of Au were heated in vacuum for two weeks at a temperature of 1127°C (63°C above the melting point of Au). The content of 197Au and 261Rg in the residue was studied with high resolution inductively coupled plasma-sector field mass spectrometry (ICP-SFMS). The residue of Au was 3 × 10−6 of its original quantity. The recovery of Rg was a few percent. The abundance of Rg compared to Au in the enriched solution was about 2 × 10−6, which is a three to four orders of magnitude enrichment."

The isotopes 280Rg and 281Rg are promising for chemical experimentation and may be produced as the granddaughters of the moscovium isotopes 288Mc and 289Mc respectively; their parents are the nihonium isotopes 284Nh and 285Nh, which have already received preliminary chemical investigations.

Rubidiums
The pressure-temperature diagram on the left shows that rubidium is bcc (α-Rb) from room temperature through melting.

Native rubidium does not appear to occur on the Earth's surface.

Rutheniums
The piece of native ruthenium in the image on the right contains some iridium. It is from Verkhneivinsk, Neiva river, Sverdlovskaya Oblast', Middle Urals, Urals Region, Russia.

A minor application for ruthenium is in platinum alloys. A ruthenium-molybdenum alloy is known to be superconductive at temperatures below 10.6 K. The composition of the mined platinum group metal (PGM) mixtures varies widely, depending on the geochemical formation. For example, the PGMs mined in South Africa contain on average 11% ruthenium while the PGMs mined in the former USSR contain only 2% (1992).

Rutherfordiums
Rutherfordium was synthesized by bombarding a californium-249 target with carbon-12 ions and measured the alpha decay of 257Rf, correlated with the daughter decay of nobelium-253:
 * + →  + 4

Rutherfordium is the parent of K-alpha X-rays in the elemental signature of the 257Rf decay product, nobelium-253.

Samariums
Samarium occurs in concentration up to 2.8% in several minerals including cerite, gadolinite, samarskite, monazite and bastnäsite.

Scandiums
Scandium is the first transition metal and the first rare earth element, the latter also includes yttrium and the lanthanoids. The ignoble light metal has only a few applications, because its chemistry isn't so complex and it also is rather expensive. It is used in high-quality, light alloys, e.g., for frames of racing bicycles.

Scandium (Sc II) has an absorption band, 424.683±1.0 nm, with an excitation potential of 0.31 eV.

Metallic scandium is used in aluminium alloysis for strengthening with as little as 0.5% scandium.

The alloy is as strong as titanium, light as aluminium, and hard as some ceramics.

"Neutron activation analysis was used to deterimne the total [lanthanum] La and [scandium] Sc content of three soils developed from loess-capped glacial till. The profiles were classified as Gray-Brown Podzolics (Hapludalfs) overlying paleosols developed in Rockain till. The total La content in the less than 250µ fraction of these soils ranged from 18.1 to 37.1 ppm, with an average content of 23.7 ppm in the loess and 28.5 ppm in the glacial till. Total Sc in the soils ranged from 5.1 to 10.9 ppm with average contents of 6.5 and 9.0 ppm in the loess and glacial till, respectively. Translocation by pedogenic processes was indicated by the accumulation of these elements in the argillic B horizons. Correlation coefficients of La and Sc with clay percentages in the profiles were 0.79 and 0.88, respectively."

Seaborgiums
Alpha emission (α), spontaneous fission (SF) and electron capture (EC) are decay modes of seaborgium.

Seleniums
On the right is a photograph of native selenium from the mineral collection of Brigham Young University Department of Geology, Provo, Utah.

The image on the left shows dark gray selenium in sandstone from Westwater Canyon Section 23 Mine Grants, New Mexico.

In the center image are native selenium needles from Katharine mine, Radvanice, Czech Republic.

Allotropes of selenium are amorphous, brick-red (α, β, and γ ) powders, black, vitreous beads, and gray selenium.

Selenium is used with bismuth in brasses to replace lead. Like lead and sulfur, selenium improves the machinability of steel at concentrations around 0.15%. Selenium produces the same machinability improvement in copper alloys.

Achávalites
Achávalite has the chemical formula.

Achávalite (IMA symbol is Ahv ) a selenide mineral that is a member of the nickeline group. It has only been found in a single Argentinian mine system, being first discovered in 1939 in a selenide deposit. The type locality is the Cacheuta mine, Sierra de Cacheuta, Mendoza, Argentina.

Clausthalites
Clausthalite is a lead selenide mineral, with chemical formula PbSe. It is a face-centered mineral with Z = 4 formula units per unit cell.

Siderophiles
Def. "an element that forms alloys easily with iron and [may be] concentrated in the Earth's core" is called a siderophile.

Siderophile (metal-loving) chemical elements include W, P, Co, Ni, Mo, Re, and Ir.

"The platinum group elements (PGE: Os, Ir, Ru, Rh, Pt, and Pd) and Re are highly siderophile elements (HSE)".

"We believe that silicon is a major element - about 5% [of the Earth's inner core] by weight could be silicon dissolved into the iron-nickel alloys."

"The innermost part of Earth is thought to be a solid ball with a radius of about 1,200 km (745 miles)."

"It is mainly composed of iron, which makes up an estimated 85% of its weight, and nickel, which accounts for about 10% of the core."

"These difficult experiments are really exciting because they can provide a window into what Earth's interior was like soon after it first formed, 4.5 billion years ago, when the core first started to separate from the rocky parts of Earth."

"But other workers have recently suggested that oxygen might also be important in the core."

"In a way, these two options [oxygen was sucked into the core that would leave the rocky mantle surrounding the core depleted of the element or a larger amount of silicon had been incorporated in Earth's core more than four billion years ago, that would have left the rest of the planet relatively oxygen rich] are real alternatives that depend a lot on the conditions prevailing when Earth's core first began to form."

Silicons
Silicon (Si II) has two absorption bands at 412.805±10.8 nm and 413.088±13.0 nm with excitation potentials of 9.79 eV and 9.80 eV, respectively.

Silicon has an absorption line (Si IV) at 408.9 nm.

Elemental silicon is added to molten cast iron as ferrosilicon or silicocalcium alloys to improve performance in casting thin sections and to prevent the formation of cementite where exposed to outside air. The presence of elemental silicon in molten iron acts as a sink for oxygen, so that the steel carbon content, which must be kept within narrow limits for each type of steel, can be more closely controlled. Ferrosilicon production and use is a monitor of the steel industry, and although this form of elemental silicon is grossly impure, it accounts for 80% of the world's use of free silicon. Silicon is an important constituent of electrical steel, modifying its resistivity and ferromagnetic properties.

The properties of silicon may be used to modify alloys with metals other than iron. "Metallurgical grade" silicon is silicon of 95–99% purity. About 55% of the world consumption of metallurgical purity silicon goes for production of aluminium-silicon alloys (silumin alloys) for aluminium part casts, mainly for use in the automotive industry. Silicon's importance in aluminium casting is that a significantly high amount (12%) of silicon in aluminium forms a eutectic mixture which solidifies with very little thermal contraction. This greatly reduces tearing and cracks formed from stress as casting alloys cool to solidity. Silicon also significantly improves the hardness and thus wear-resistance of aluminium.

"The relatively long-lived radionuclide of silicon, 32Si, finds important applications as a tracer for studying aqueous geochemistry, biogeochemical cycles of silicon in the oceans, and the chronology of glaciers and biogenic silica-rich sediments in lacustrine and marine environments."

Silicon hydrogenated amorphous carbons
"The broad, 60 < FWHM < 100 nm, featureless luminescence band known as extended red emission (ERE) is seen in such diverse dusty astrophysical environments as reflection nebulae17, planetary nebulae3, HII regions (Orion)12, a Nova11, Galactic cirrus14, a dark nebula7, Galaxies8,6 and the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM)4. The band is confined between 540-950 nm, but the wavelength of peak emission varies from environment to environment, even within a given object. ... the wavelength of peak emission is longer and the efficiency of the luminescence is lower, the harder and denser the illuminating radiation field is13. These general characteristics of ERE constrain the photoluminescence (PL) band and efficiency for laboratory analysis of dust analog materials."

"The PL efficiencies measured for [hydrogenated amorphous carbon] HAC and Si-HAC alloys are consistent with dust estimates for reflection nebulae and planetary nebulae, but exhibit substantial photoluminescence below 540 nm which is not observed in astrophysical environments."

Moissanite
Moissanite is native SiC.

Silvers
Native silver does occur as cubic, octahedral, or dodecahedral crystals; "also elongated, arborescent, reticulated, or as thin to thick wires."

The metal is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native silver"), as an alloy with gold, copper, zinc, cadmium, indium, tin, mercury, cobalt, nickel, palladium, manganese, phosphorus, and lead, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite.

Ag+ is the stable species in aqueous solution and solids.

Bromyrites
Bromyrite, or bromargyrite, is a cubic silver bromide mineral (AgBr) that is 50 at % bromine.

The image on the right shows a butterscotch colored bromargyrite cube from Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia.

Iodyrites
Iodyrite (AgI) may be the most common mineral with large amounts of iodine found on Earth. It is 50 at % iodine.

On the right are twinned iodyrite, or iodargyrite, crystals are within a rock sample from Schöne Aussicht Mine, Dernbach, Neuwied, Wied Iron Spar District, Westerwald, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

Sodiums
. The phase diagram on the left shows bcc (α-Na) at higher temperatures up to melting and hcp (β-Na) with decreasing temperature below the transition at 97.8°C.

Native sodium does not appear to occur on the surface of the Earth.

"Glaciers in the Karakoram and western Himalaya (site 2 and 3) show high annual snow accumulation rates and high annual fluxes of calcium, sodium, chloride, sulfate, and nitrate."

Fluorites
Fluorite is a mineral composed of NaF.

Although fluorite usually appears violet or purple in color, the crystals at left are cyan with some blue or violet fluorite mixed in suggesting slight variations in composition.

Strontiums
Strontium at room temperature crystallizes in a fcc structure (α-Sr).

According to the phase diagram on the left, α-Sr transforms to γ-Sr (bcc) at 547°C.

Native strontium does not appear to occur on the surface of the Earth.

Three allotropes of metallic strontium exist, with transition points at 235 and 540 °C.

Strontium (Sr II) has two absorption bands: 407.771±11.3 nm and 421.552±10.4 nm.

Tantalums
The iron-tantalum phase diagram on the left shows the bcc (α-Ta) phase from lower temperatures through and up to melting.

On the right is a scanning electron micrograph of a piece of native tantalum from Kvanefjeld Mountain, Kuannersuit Plateau, Ilímaussaq complex, Narsaq, Kujalleq, Greenland. Tantalum forms compounds in oxidation states −III to +V.

A tantalum-tellurium alloy forms quasicrystals.

Technetiums

 * $$\nu + ^{97}Mo \rightarrow e^- + ^{97}Tc,$$ and


 * $$\nu + ^{98}Mo \rightarrow e^- + ^{98}Tc.$$

These "reactions probe precisely the time scale and neutrino-flux component of most interest: the boron-8 neutrino luminosity, which is the most sensitive monitor of variations in the solar core temperature, during and before the Pleistocene epoch. (The half-lives of technetium-97 and -98 are, respectively, 2.6 and 4.2 million years; the reaction on molybdenum-98 is induced only by the high-energy boron-8 neutrinos; and the reaction on molybdenum-97 may sample in addition the flux of beryllium-7 neutrinos, which are second only to boron-8 neutrinos in sensitivity to the core temperature.)"

Telluriums
On the right is an example of native tellurium from the Emperor Mine, Vatukoula, Tavua Gold Field, Viti Levu, Fiji.

On the left is an encrustation of native tellurium on the upper left portion of a rock. Tellurium is used in iron, stainless steel, copper, lead alloys, n-type bismuth telluride alloys. Tellurium has two allotropes, crystalline and amorphous. When crystalline, tellurium is silvery-white with a metallic luster. The crystals are trigonal and chiral (space group 152 or 154 depending on the chirality), like the gray form of selenium. It is a brittle and easily pulverized metalloid. Amorphous tellurium is a black-brown powder prepared by precipitating it from a solution of tellurous acid or telluric acid (Te(OH)6).

Altaites
Altaite has the chemical formula of PbTe. It has face-centered cubic structure with four formula molecules (Z=4) per unit cell. It is 50 atomic percent lead and 50 at. % tellurium. Crystal habits include cubic and octahedral crystals; but much more commonly found in massive and granular forms.

Tennessines
The figures near the arrows describe experimental (black) and theoretical (blue) values for the lifetime and energy of each decay. Lifetimes may be converted to half-lives by multiplying by ln 2.

Terbiums
Terbium is never found in nature as a free element, but it is contained in many minerals, including cerite, gadolinite, monazite, xenotime and euxenite.

Terfenol-D, an alloy of the formula (x ≈ 0.3), is a magnetostrictive material.

Terbium is contained along with other rare earth elements in many minerals, including monazite ( with up to 0.03% terbium), xenotime and euxenite ( with 1% or more terbium). The crust abundance of terbium is estimated as 1.2 mg/kg. No terbium-dominant mineral has yet been found.

Thalliums
Thallium (I) ions are found geologically mostly in potassium-based ores. The radioisotope thallium-201 is the soluble chloride TlCl.

A mercury–thallium alloy, which forms a eutectic at 8.5% thallium, is reported to freeze at −60 °C, some 20 °C below the freezing point of mercury.



There is a green thallium line that shows up in arc spectra using "two to eight amperes at 120 volts, usually between ordinary arc carbons."

Thoriums
Thorium is a silvery, radioactive, metallic element. At room temperature and pressure, thorium crystallizes into a face-centered cubic lattice, where one thorium atom occupies each location of a black sphere in the diagram on the left.

Thorium can form alloys with many other metals. Addition of small proportions of thorium improves the mechanical strength of magnesium, and thorium-aluminium alloys have been considered as a way to store thorium in thorium nuclear reactors. Thorium forms eutectic mixtures with chromium and uranium, and it is completely miscible in both solid and liquid states with its lighter congener cerium.

Def. a chemical element (symbol Th) with atomic number 90 is called thorium.

Tetravalent thorium compounds are usually colourless or yellow, like those of silver or lead, as the Th4+ ion has no 5f or 6d electrons.

Monazites
Monazite, a primarily reddish-brown phosphate mineral that contains rare-earth elements, with variability composition, is considered a group of minerals: (Ce,La,Nd,Th) occurs usually in small isolated crystals has a hardness of 5.0 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness and is relatively dense, about 4.6 to 5.7 g/cm3.
 * monazite-(Ce), (Ce,La,Nd,Th) (the most common member),
 * monazite-(La), (La,Ce,Nd),
 * monazite-(Nd), (Nd,La,Ce),
 * monazite-(Sm), (Sm,Gd,Ce,Th),
 * monazite-(Pr), (Pr,Ce,Nd,Th).

The primary source of the world's thorium is the rare-earth, and thorium, phosphate mineral monazite.

Silica is present in trace amounts, as is small amounts of uranium.

Due to the alpha decay of thorium and uranium, monazite contains a significant amount of helium, which can be extracted by heating.

Umbozerites
The IMA-CNMNC approved mineral symbol is Ubz.

Umbozerites have the chemical formula, IMA formula , common impurities: Ti,Ce,Fe,U,Mn,Ca,Ba,K, and Crystal System: Amorphous.

Environment: In ussingite veinlets cutting alkalic rocks, type locality: Umbozero (Lake Umba), Kola Peninsula, Russia, dark brown prismatic umbozerite masses in pegmatite rock, Metamict - Mineral originally crystalline, now amorphous due to radiation damage, Pseudo Tetragonal - Crystals show a tetragonal shape, Umbozerite is Radioactive as defined in 49 CFR 173.403, greater than 70 Bq / gram.

Occurrence: In pneumatolytic-hydrothermal veins cutting alkalic rocks in the upper part of a differentiated alkalic massif, Crystal Data: Metamict; tetragonal after recrystallization

Association: Ussingite, sphalerite, belovite, manganoan pectolite, lorenzenite, niobium-bearing minerals of the lomonosovite group.

Distribution: Found on Mts. Karnasurt and Punkaruaiv, near Lake Umba, Lovozero massif, Kola Peninsula, Russia.

Thuliums
Thulium dissolves readily in dilute sulfuric acid to form solutions containing the pale green Tm (III) ions, which exist as complexes:



Tins
Native tin such as in the images on the right and left occurs in two crystal forms: α-Sn (cubic) and β-Sn (tetragonal). α-tin, the nonmetallic form or gray tin, is stable below 13.2 C and is brittle. α-tin has a diamond cubic crystal structure, similar to diamond, silicon or germanium. α-tin has no metallic properties, because its atoms form a covalent structure in which electrons cannot move freely. α-tin is a dull-gray powdery material with no common uses other than specialized semiconductor applications.

The α-β transformation temperature is 13.2 C, but impurities (e.g. Al, Zn, etc.) lower it well below 0 C. With the addition of antimony or bismuth the transformation might not occur at all, increasing durability.

β–α transition of tin is at −40 °C.

β-tin, the metallic form or white tin, has Tetragonal crystal system, body-centered tetragonal (BCT structure) and is stable at and above room temperature and is malleable.

γ-tin and σ-tin exist at temperatures above 161 C and pressures above several GPa.

Bronzes
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (such as aluminum, manganese, nickel or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such as arsenic, or silicon.

Titaniums
"Microbeam analysis of eclogites from the ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt in Dabieshan, China has revealed native titanium inclusions in garnets of coesite eclogite. The inclusions are about 10 μm in size, have a submetallic luster from the thin oxidation film on the surface, and are brown under reflected light."

Titanium is a dimorphic allotrope that "undergoes a phase transformation (hcp to bcc) at 882 °C [5]."

As the phase diagram on the left indicates, there is a miscibility gap between bcc iron (α-Fe) and hcp (α-Ti) up to about 800°C.

Titanium (Ti) has green emission lines at 521.97, 522.268, 522.413, 524.729, and 526.596 nm as observed in solar limb faculae.

Titanium (Ti II) has an absorption band, 391.346-441.108 nm, with an excitation potential range of 0.60-3.08 eV.

Titanium has two emission lines at 456.3757 and 457.1971 nm from Ti II.

Titanium can be alloyed with iron, aluminium, zirconium, nickel, vanadium, copper, and molybdenum.

Osbornites
Osbornite is a very rare natural form of titanium nitride (TiN), found almost exclusively in meteorites.

Tungstens
In the scanning electron micrograph on the right is a bright grain, or crystalline mass, of native tungsten. The sample is a fragment of lunar silicate glass from the Luna 24 landing site, Mare Crisium, The Moon. The fragment is bright in backscattered electrons.

The iron-tungsten phase diagram on the left shows that the bcc phase of tungsten (α-W) occurs from lower temperatures on up to the melting temperature.

Tungsten is usually alloyed with nickel, iron, or cobalt to form heavy alloys,

Tungsten carbide (chemical formula: WC) is a chemical compound (specifically, a carbide) containing equal parts of tungsten and carbon atoms.

Uraniums
Uranium "not only exists in the forms of tetravalent and hexavalent uranium oxides, but also occurs in the form of native uranium [from the hydrothermal Guidong and Zhuguang uranium deposits of the middle Nanling metallogenic belt, Southern China]."

Depleted uranium (DU) is alloyed with 1–2% other elements, such as titanium or molybdenum. UCo is a superconductor at 1.70°K.

UMnGe (Pnma, a = 686.12(9), b = 425.49(6) and c = 736.5(1) pm) adopts the orthorhombic structure of TiNiSi and (P63/mmc, a = 524.3(2) and c = 799.2(3) pm) possesses the hexagonal -type structure (ordered variant of the hexagonal Laves phase ).

Vanadiums
"[N]ative vanadium [occurs] in natural fumarolic incrustations and in the mineral assemblage precipitated in silica tubes inserted into high-temperature (750-830°C) fumaroles of Colima volcano – the most active volcano of Mexico, and one of the most active in the Americas. [...] The new mineral and its name (“vanadium”) have been approved by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association (Williams et al., 2013; IMA # 2012- 021a). The holotype material has been deposited in the Geological Museum of National Mexican University (New mineral collection of Mexican Mineralogical Society with cataloged under FIM 12/01)."

In the image on the right, the backscattered electron micrograph on the left side, has the native vanadium crystals colorized in red. The energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) spectrum on the right shows the vanadium peaks plus small amounts of Fe and S.

As the phase diagram on the left indicates vanadium is bcc down to lower temperatures from its melting point.



The chemistry of vanadium is noteworthy for the accessibility of the four adjacent oxidation states 2-5. In aqueous solution the colours are lilac V2+(aq), green V3+(aq), blue VO2+(aq) and, at high pH, yellow VO42-.

Vanadium (V II) has an absorption band, 392.973-403.678 nm, with an excitation potential range of 1.07-1.81 eV.

Ytterbiums
Natural ytterbium is a mixture of seven stable isotopes, which altogether are present at concentrations of 0.3 parts per million.

Ytterbium has three allotropes: alpha, beta and gamma; their transformation temperatures are −13 °C and 795 °C, although the exact transformation temperature depends on the pressure and stress. The beta allotrope (6.966 g/cm3) exists at room temperature, and it has a face-centered cubic crystal structure. The high-temperature gamma allotrope (6.57 g/cm3) has a body-centered cubic crystalline structure. The alpha allotrope (6.903 g/cm3) has a hexagonal crystalline structure and is stable at low temperatures. The beta allotrope has a metallic electrical conductivity at normal atmospheric pressure, but it becomes a semiconductor when exposed to a pressure of about 16,000 atmospheres (1.6 GPa). Its electrical resistivity increases ten times upon compression to 39,000 atmospheres (3.9 GPa), but then drops to about 10% of its room-temperature resistivity at about 40,000 atm (4.0 GPa).



The alpha allotrope is diamagnetic.

Ytterbium is paramagnetic at temperatures above 1.0 K.

Natural ytterbium is composed of seven stable isotopes: 168Yb, 170Yb, 171Yb, 172Yb, 173Yb, 174Yb, and 176Yb, with 174Yb being the most common, at 31.8% of the natural abundance). 27 radioisotopes have been observed, with the most stable ones being 169Yb with a half-life of 32.0 days, 175Yb with a half-life of 4.18 days, and 166Yb with a half-life of 56.7 hours. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than two hours, and most of these have half-lives under 20 minutes. Ytterbium also has 12 meta states, with the most stable being 169mYb (t1/2 46 seconds).

The isotopes of ytterbium range in atomic weight from 147.9674 atomic mass unit (u) for 148Yb to 180.9562 u for 181Yb. The primary decay mode of ytterbium isotopes lighter than the most abundant stable isotope, 174Yb, is electron capture, and the primary decay mode for those heavier than 174Yb is beta decay. The primary decay products of ytterbium isotopes lighter than 174Yb are thulium isotopes, and the primary decay products of ytterbium isotopes with heavier than 174Yb are lutetium isotopes.

It occurs in the minerals monazite, euxenite, and xenotime.

Ytterbium Oxides
The +2 oxidation state occurs only in solid compounds and reacts in some ways similarly to the alkaline earth metal compounds; for example, ytterbium(II) oxide (YbO) shows the same structure as calcium oxide (CaO).

Yttriums
Yttrium (Y II) has an absorption band from 395.035 to 439.802 nm, with an excitation potential range of 0.10-0.13 eV.

The orange system, in orange astronomy is a number of emission lines very close together forming a band in the orange portion of the visible spectrum. These lines are usually associated with particular molecular species, including ScO, YO, and TiO.

Small amounts of yttrium (0.1 to 0.2%) have been used to reduce the grain sizes of chromium, molybdenum, titanium, and zirconium. Yttrium is used to increase the strength of aluminium and magnesium alloys. The addition of yttrium to alloys generally improves workability, adds resistance to high-temperature recrystallization, and significantly enhances resistance to high-temperature oxidation.

Yttrium nitrides
Yttrium nitride (YN) is formed when the metal is heated to 1000 °C in nitrogen.

Zincs
"Satellite images taken over the past several decades show the dramatic disappearance of ice, including on the island’s inland areas, where the ice fields can in places be up to three and a half kilometers deep."

"Along with uranium, zinc, iron ore, copper and gold, Greenland’s ancient rocks also harbor large quantities of those minerals known as “rare earth,” among them lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praesodymium, terbium and yttrium."

Metals long known to form binary alloys with zinc are aluminium, antimony, bismuth, gold, iron, lead, mercury, silver, tin, magnesium, cobalt, nickel, tellurium, and sodium.

Although neither zinc nor zirconium is ferromagnetic, their alloy exhibits ferromagnetism below 35 K.

Brasses
The earliest brasses may have been natural alloys made by smelting zinc-rich copper ores.

The compositions of these early "brass" objects are highly variable and most have zinc contents of between 5% and 15% wt which is lower than in brass produced by cementation.

Alpha-brass is.

Zincites
Zincite has the formula ZnO.
 * 1) Colour: Red, orange, yellow, white; rarely green.
 * 2) Lustre: Sub-Vitreous, Resinous, Waxy, Greasy, Silky, Dull, Earthy.
 * 3) Crystal System: Hexagonal.

Zinc selenides
"ZnSe appears as an attractive material to blue and near UV optoelectronics."

Zirconiums
Zirconium is a lustrous, greyish-white, soft, ductile, malleable metal that is solid at room temperature, though it is hard and brittle at lesser purities.

Zirconium is highly resistant to corrosion by alkalis, acids, salt water and other agents. However, it will dissolve in hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, especially when fluorine is present.

Alloys with zinc are magnetic at less than 35 K.

The melting point of zirconium is 1855 °C (3371 °F), and the boiling point is 4371 °C (7900 °F). Zirconium has an electronegativity of 1.33 on the Pauling scale for the elements within the d-block with known electronegativities, zirconium has the fifth lowest electronegativity after hafnium, yttrium, lanthanum, and actinium.

At room temperature zirconium exhibits a hexagonally close-packed crystal structure, α-Zr, which changes to β-Zr, a body-centered cubic crystal structure, at 863 °C, β-phase until the melting point.

As the Fe-Zr phase diagram on the left demonstrates, zirconium has a hcp structure (α-Zr) at lower temperatures, including room temperature, and a bcc structure (β-Zr) at higher temperatures up to melting.

"Zirconium isotopic abundances [may be] determined from ZrO bandheads near 6925 Å via synthetic spectra for a sample of S stars."

Zirconium (Zr II) has an absorption band, 395.824-415.624 nm, with an excitation potential of 0.52-0.75 eV.

The mineral zircon is the most important source of zirconium.

Naturally occurring zirconium is composed of five isotopes:
 * 1) 90Zr is the most common, making up 51.45% of all zirconium,
 * 2) 91Zr,
 * 3) 92Zr and
 * 4) 94Zr are stable, although 94Zr is predicted to undergo double beta decay (not observed experimentally) with a half-life of more than 1.10×1017 years,
 * 5) 96Zr has a half-life of 2.4×1019 years, is the longest-lived radioisotope of zirconium and is the least common, comprising only 2.80% of zirconium.

Twenty-eight artificial isotopes of zirconium have been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 78 to 110.
 * 1) 88Zr, decays by electron capture,
 * 2) 93Zr is the longest-lived artificial isotope, with a half-life of 1.53×106 years,
 * 3) 110Zr, the heaviest isotope of zirconium, is the most radioactive, with an estimated half-life of 30 milliseconds.

Radioactive isotopes at or above mass number 93 decay by electron emission, whereas those at or below 89 usually decay by positron emission.

Five isotopes of zirconium also exist as metastable isomers:
 * 1) 83mZr,
 * 2) 85mZr,
 * 3) 89mZr, is the longest lived with a half-life of 4.161 minutes,
 * 4) 90m1Zr,
 * 5) 90m2Zr has the shortest half-life at 131 nanoseconds, and
 * 6) 91mZr.

88Zr: "When irradiated with low-energy neutrons from a nuclear reactor, each atom of zirconium-88 had a high probability of absorbing a neutron into its nucleus, causing the element to transform into another isotope, zirconium-89. The reaction was about 85,000 times as likely to occur as predicted."

"88Zr has a thermal neutron capture cross-section of 861,000 ± 69,000 barns (1σ uncertainty), which is five orders of magnitude larger than the theoretically predicted value of 10 barns2."

"Only one other isotope, xenon-135, is known to be better at capturing neutrons. Previously studied versions of zirconium are much more reluctant to take on another neutron, with absorption probabilities about a millionth that of zirconium-88, or less."

"Isotopes with a high neutron capture probability can be used to control nuclear reactors by sopping up loose neutrons, slowing the rate of reactions."

Hypotheses

 * 1) The use of satellites should provide ten times the information as sounding rockets or balloons.

A control group for a radiation satellite would contain
 * 1) a radiation astronomy telescope,
 * 2) a two-way communication system,
 * 3) a positional locator,
 * 4) an orientation propulsion system, and
 * 5) power supplies and energy sources for all components.

A control group for radiation astronomy satellites may include an ideal or rigorously stable orbit so that the satellite observes the radiation at or to a much higher resolution than an Earth-based ground-level observatory is capable of.