A great day for my collection!

[budullewraagh]

heh, see? btw, the oxide would react:

BeO+2HCl --> BeCl2+H2O

[Gilded]

Yum yum, chemical pneumonitis. BeCl2 is good for making pure beryllium through reduction with potassium though. And you could probably kill quite a few fish with it too.

[jdurg]

You really have no problems with heating beryllium metal. In a solid form, it is not that big of a danger. Now in a powdered form it is one of the nastiest things you can ever deal with. (Unless you're one of the VERY few lucky people on Earth who don't develop any adverse reaction to beryllium metal. However that's not something that I'd be willing to risk my life on to try and find out). The toxicity of beryllium really has nothing to do with beryllium itself, but more with how the human body reacts to it. For some reason that is not fully understood, beryllium causes the body to develop a serious allergic reaction that cannot be controlled. This leads to painful sores in the lungs which just don't go away. For some people, they develop no reaction at all and beryllium is pretty much non-toxic to them. For the majority of people, however, they do develop that allergic reaction and once it has started it cannot be stopped.

 

While I have no need to melt down any beryllium, I would not be all too worried about melting a button of it into a cast shape. This is because Be does not readily form oxides even at high temperatures. When it does form an oxide, it adhered STRONGLY to the metal and doesn't come flying off. It's akin to aluminum in that regard. (And it's chemistry is eerily similar to aluminum metal as well. While Be or Al won't dissolve in water, they VERY easily dissolve in basic solutions).

[Gilded]

"they VERY easily dissolve in basic solutions"

 

Time to make some Fish Megadeath with Mr. Muscle and beryllium. Btw, D. Hamric told me in an e-mail that he posted the stuff on Tuesday. In that case, I'm lucky if they'll be here this week (as it's 0:07 Monday here now). I'm also starting to wonder if I'm being monitored by SUPO ("Finland's FBI", just lazier though) or something with all these suspicious orders.

[Gilded]

Once again, I have underestimated the power of the nice men at customs/post (I love you all! ). The order came today (and it appeared that the calcium was on a so called beta-list which I then changed to something else, so no calcium this time ), and the samples are great! The beryllium pearls are really mindblowing - I've seen blueberries that are 1/4 the size and weigh as much. The iodine jar-type of container seems to be sealed with black duct tape (so there's probably argon inside) and now I'm very, very tempted to open the container and get just a wee little bit for NI3 purposes. The magnesium bars are also larger than I expected, very light and shiny. The gold and rhenium are also nice, and so is the tungsten (about 9mm bullet size, so this one I'll probably use for some nifty rail gun experiment ).

 

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to grind some shavings off the other Mg bar.

 

Edit: Damn, magnesium is a pretty tough bugger. A pinhead-sized shaving I managed to grind off the bar lighted pretty nicely though.

[budullewraagh]

'grats!

[Gilded]

36 stable elements collected... err, lots to go. Not too many expensive ones left though, mostly stuff like copper and cobalt, with the exceptions of osmium, rubidium and a few others. Fluorine's not going to be fun either.

[budullewraagh]

don't get fluorine. even if you have it safely stored, you will become paranoid very, very quickly.

[jdurg]

Congrats as well! It's always great receiving a package in the mail from Dave Hamric. He always supplies great samples which have good eye appeal and are well worth the price. It was a blast being able to go and meet him in person and spend a day working on stuff. He was able to put my mercury, bromine, and iodine into seald glass ampoules so that I could store and display them with the rest of my stuff. I also helped him setup a chlorine generating system with all the proper chemicals and whatnot. We made quite a few good ampoules of chlorine gas. It's pretty neat because looking at it straight on, sometimes the green color is barely apparent while sometimes it's really easy to see. However, if you look at it from the end of the tube, the green color of the gas is ALWAYS intense and easy to see. Must be because of the amount of gas you're looking through depending on the angle. It was also neat ampouling the iodine because we actually liquified it! I had NEVER seen liquid iodine and thought it was the coolest thing. It was exactly like bromine, only purple. His PGM samples are also top-notch. The osmium pellet I purchased off of him is completely smooth and has a beautiful blue color. I plan on buying more pellets over a long period of time until I have a vial completely filled with osmium. I think that would be much cooler than just having one large slug of it. For the Ruthenium and Rhenium I plan on picking up a troy ounce button from Dave in order to go along with my Iridium button and my troy ounces of palladium and silver. I need a few more samples of platinum and gold in order to have a full troy ounce of it in my display vials, but that will eventually come. (I have more than an ounce of Au and Pt, but much of it is in coins which I have stored with my coins and in safes rather than in my general display. The stuff in my general display are samples which are duplicates of what I have in my coin collection, or samples which aren't coins). Probably the only PGM which I don't eventually see myself getting an ounce of is Rhodium. At about $1500 an ounce and climbing, I'll just have to be content with my 10-11 gram sample that I bought at the perfect time! (When I bought it, Rhodium was only a little bit above $800 an ounce so my sample cost me $200. A few weeks later, Rh suddenly skyrocketed and I couldn't have been happier. Had I not seen that auction until a few weeks afterward, it would have cost a fortune).

 

I also know that Dave is working on gas-discharge tubes for sale. He's just trying to get the experience in making the tubes and filling them properly before he starts to offer them. I'm rooting for him to succeed in that endevour since I'd love to get a nitrogen gas discharge tube so that I can have a visible representation of every 'colorless' gas out there. He is also doing research into fluorine generation and 'preservation'. There are methods for taking fluorine gas and sealing it into a transparent container. Generally speaking, however, it is quite involved and requires some expensive equipment. He has been reading about some chemical methods of generation which are valid but difficult to get the chemicals for. (A lot of it involves decomposition of Xenon Fluorides and various other 'semi-stable' fluorides via heat. Doing that in a vessel which is free of water will avoid the generation of HF which is what attacks glass). Anyway, there are a bunch of different ideas being thought over that sound pretty neat. If he is able to find a way to safely and effectively do that, I will definitely be getting a sample. Fluorine gas is the only non-radioactive element that I do not have a pure sample of.

[jdurg]

Fluorine is not nearly as bad as everyone says it is. I know you've done a lot of research on it Bud, but you also need to consider the quantities involved with all these 'stories' you hear. If fluorine was indeed as deadly as it's made out to be, there would be far more tales of death and destruction than there really are. If it were possible to get a sample of fluorine gas in a transparent tube, even if it were to break it would all react before it could get to you and cause damage. In an element collection, there's really more potential for harm with the alkali metals and the other halogens since they are generally purchased in greater quantities since they aren't as 'reactive'. I have a nice big sample of white phosphorus which is just as deadly as fluorine is, but I'm not freaking out over it. In order to safely collect elements you need to know what you're getting into first. I think it's safe to say that those of us here who are collecting them know what we're getting into.

[budullewraagh]

eh...fluorine self-catalyzes. there are -OH impurities in glass; nomatter how hard you try to remove them, there will still be one or two left. continuous self-catalysis occurs and one day randomly the fluorine will escape. it's not about to react with atmospheric gases...as it floats around it will ignite anything organic. if it hits your skin, 10ppm will burn a hole in you straight to your bones in 0.06 seconds, from what i've heard...then your bones go aqueous and you get anemic...plus the fluoride formed goes straight to the heart and suddenly you're dead. if it doesn't kill you within a minute it will severely diminish your lifespan.

 

we have to remember that great chemists were killed by this gas. great chemists who were very careful, experienced and skilled still couldn't handle the great tiger of chemistry. when fluorine is produced it generally isn't kept around, just about anywhere. few places store it, and those that do chill it in liquid nitrogen and seal it in the most secure devices possible, namely thick PTFE.

 

it just isn't practical. even if you do get it, you will be paranoid. you'll constantly find yourself wondering just how many -OH radicals there are in the glass. you'll wonder how fast the rate of reaction is and you will know that one day, randomly, the fluorine will escape. this may be when you are standing next to it. this may be while you are out. i still get a bit creeped out by my room, which has smelled slightly different ever since my encounter with H2S, SO2 and HI gas.

[YT2095]

I`de have to agree with that post (#60)

 

if you put them all in a box and ran a steam roller over them there maybe a problem or 2, certainly nothing uncontainable though.

 

it`s similar when I read stories (and I think that all they are! after the exagerations) about NG, I`ve dropped a 50ml bolltle of the stuff and the glass shattered all over the place, NO Boom Booms at all, just don`t breath it in!

 

ignore most of what you see on TV (esp in the movies!) and half the internet`s garbage too!

[YT2095]

if it hits your skin' date=' 10ppm will burn a hole in you straight to your bones in 0.06 seconds, from what i've heard...then your bones go aqueous and you get anemic...plus the fluoride formed goes straight to the heart and suddenly you're dead. if it doesn't kill you within a minute it will severely diminish your lifespan.

[/quote']

 

oh dear God!

 

I think I`ve just about heard it all now, I really thought you were a Serious chemist!

 

and the "from what i`ve heard comment" says it all (

 

it will react with your skin sure, it`ll even be painless after a while, but is NOT "Molecular Acid" as seen in Aliens 1 2 or 3!

 

YT hits Bud with a Reality Stick, sorry dude!

[jdurg]

I have to agree with YT as well. Yeah the early researchers on fluorine had some nasty incidents, but they also did all of this without the use of a fume-hood and with MASSIVE quantities of the stuff. We're talking about hundreds of grams up to pounds of the starting chemicals. In the labs they had at the time, there was no ventilation and no way to introduce 'fresh' air. As a result, the little bits of HF that went into the air caused more damage to them than the fluorine itself. Fluorine is very reactive and WILL react with the air around you. Unless your air is completely free of water, and amount of F2 that you could generate and seal up in a flask would be destroyed by the water in the air anyway. We're talking about a few mL of gas here, not a few liters of it. Also, fluorine gas is generally shipped at room temperature in pressurized containers made of nickel or steel (I can't remember which). In terms of storing it in a non-transparent container, that's pretty easy to do. It's the transparent container that's tough, but it can still be done if you have the time and equipment.

 

Just remember, the chemistry lab of 'today' is much different than the labs of the later 1800's.

[budullewraagh]

meh, the statistics were a bit off, i'll grant you that. perhaps my source was a few powers of ten off. nonetheless, it does go straight to the bones, heart and cns. and then there's the paranoia factor...

[Gilded]

"I think that would be much cooler than just having one large slug of it."

 

Nothing's more refreshing than a swim in a bath tub full of small osmium pellets. And if you mention another case where you got precious metals for under 1/5 of their reasonable price, I'm going to scream.

 

And for the fluorine, the risk factor is of course one of the good things in element collecting. And as stated, fluorine just might be the most dangerous of the stable elements, but bears or tigers in a zoo are dangerous too - the trick is not to put your hand or genitals in the cage.

[budullewraagh]

ok, so keep your fluorine buried in your back yard and try not to die

[Gilded]

*Sigh* Even if I had it in a very -OH ended glass tube or similar, I would most likely notice the attack starting and dispose of it. It doesn't eat through the glass in one day you know. :I Btw, the RGB fluorine sample looks REALLY unsafe. It even states that there might be signs of attacks visible inside (which is very likely).

[jdurg]

The RGB sample actually contains almost no fluorine. They just fill little glass vials with the fluorine gas, and it soon eats its way right out. At most, there may be 0.0005 atm of F2 inside there. Also, the more the glass is eaten the less fluorine you will have. In order to eat the glass it has to react with it which diminishes the amount you have in the sample.

[budullewraagh]

i still wouldnt want to be exposed to any fluorine at all, but hey, that's just me

[jdurg]

Heh. Put me in a room with hundreds of tanks of it and I think that'd be great. (It must be a helluva lot of fun to work in a Gaseous Diffusion uranium enrichment plant. hehe).

[budullewraagh]

see, the thing is that you'll never find a place with a significant amount of fluorine

[jdurg]

Go to ANY uranium enrichment facility and you'll find more fluorine than you could ever possibly imagine.

[budullewraagh]

wow, two things i hate: fluorine and radiation. i wont go to any uranium enrichment facility anytime soon

[jdurg]

Heh. Well don't worry. You need a good deal of clearance to get near those places. Actually, there's a place about 12-14 miles from me that probably has a ton of fluorine. Dow Chemical has a major manufacturing plant located a few towns away and I know they use elemental fluorine a heck of a lot. Heh. I should apply for a job there.