Elemental

Isolating the element thulium was a truly laborious process that took many years, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 88 of Elemental.

Isolating the element thulium was a truly laborious process that took many years.

Charles James had to carry out 15,000 recrystallisations to prepare his sample when he was wanting to determine the atomic weight of thulium, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 88 of Elemental.

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Named after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, thorium could provide a cleaner source of nuclear power in the future, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in episode 87 of Elemental.

Named after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, thorium could provide a cleaner source of nuclear power in the future.

All of its isotopes are radioactive, and it was the second element to be classified as radioactive, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 87 of Elemental.

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Thallium is most famous for some infamous poisoned family cases & its appearance in an Agatha Christie novel solved a medical mystery, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 86 of Elemental.

Thallium is most famous for some infamous poisoned family cases, and used to be used as rat poison.

It is highly toxic because it 'looks' like potassium to mammalian bodies.

Its appearance in the Agatha Christie novel 'The Pale Horse' solved a medical mystery, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 86 of Elemental.

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A discovery from the chemically prolific Swedish village of Ytterby, terbium produced the green on old TV sets & adds security to Euro notes, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 85 of Elemental.

A discovery from the chemically prolific Swedish village of Ytterby, the lanthanoid terbium produced the green on old TV sets & adds security to Euro notes, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 85 of Elemental.

For further elements named after Ytterby, see erbium, yttrium and ytterbium (although you'll have to wait for the latter two).

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Tellurium is a metalloid often found with gold and the US town Telluride is named after it, says Prof Allan Blackman, in ep 84 of Elemental.

Tellurium was one of Mendeleev's rare mistakes on the original periodic table as he put it in the wrong place.

Tellurium compounds are most famous for their nasty and persistent smell. Just fifteen milligrams of tellurium oxide taken orally will still be detectable as 'tellurium breath' eight months later. And the smell? Like bad garlic, owing to the production of dimethyltellurium.

It is a metalloid and finds uses in semiconductors, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 84 of Elemental.

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Technetium was the first element on the periodic table to be synthesised. It is rare, radioactive and has only a few uses, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 83 of Elemental.

Dmitri Mendeleev predicted some of the properties of element 43, but it remained stubbornly undiscovered until l937.

The reason it was hard to discover is that the radioactive element doesn't really exist on Planet Earth.

Its great claim to fame is that it was the first element to be synthesised, hence its name, technetium, from the Greek tekhnetos, meaning 'artificial', says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 83 of Elemental.

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The metal tantalum is usually found with the element niobium, has a very high melting point but is a 'conflict mineral', says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 82 of Elemental.

Tantalum is almost always found in association with niobium, which is why tantalum is named after Tantalus, the father of Niobe.

Tantalus was condemned to eternal hunger and thirst by the Greek Gods, even when he was surrounded by fruit and water. The discoverer of tantalum thought it was a fitting name as the element, "when placed in the midst of acids, is incapable of taking them up and saturating itself with them."

Tantalum has the third highest melting point of all metals, which is why it was used as an early incandescent bulb filament.

The metal is inert to bodily fluids and well tolerated by our bodies, hence its use in surgical instruments and implants, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 82 of Elemental.

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Sulfur is responsible for some very bad smells, is the number one industrial chemical and is also an essential element, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 81 of Elemental.

Sulfur is associated with many bad smells, think farts and Rotorua. The smells are caused by thiols, also known as mercaptans, which are compounds with a sulfur bonded to a hydrogen. An example is the smell of H2S, or rotten egg gas, which can be fatal.

However, thiols are also responsible for more pleasant aromas, such as the smell of grapefruit and coffee.

Crude oil contains lots of sulfur, and when petrol or diesel with high levels of sulfur is burnt it can result in the release of the atmospheric pollutant sulfur dioxide.

Sulfuric acid is the number one industrial chemical on earth, much of which is used in the production of fertilisers, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 81 of Elemental.

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Named after a Scottish town, strontium can be highly radioactive & glow-in-the-dark, but also used in toothpaste, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT, in ep 80 of Elemental.

Strontium is named after the Scottish village of Strontian and is the United Kingdom's only claim to fame on the periodic table.

It is a group 2 metal that sits between calcium and barium on the periodic table, and is best known for producing a brilliant crimson-red colour in fireworks.

Strontium aluminate is widely used in glow-in-dark paints and plastic because in the presence of a smidge of euroropium it can be irradiated with white light to slowly produce a long-lasting green light. This is because it is a photoluminescent phosphorescent material.

Strontium salts are sometimes used in toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth.

Strontium is probably best known for the 90Sr isotope formed in nuclear fission and contained in nuclear waste, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 80 of Elemental.

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Sodium is vital for life & usually found in combinaton with other more interesting elements, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 79 of Elemental.

Would you willingly eat the product obtained from the reaction of a metal which reacts violently with water and a poisonous gas that was used as a chemical weapon in World War One?

Well, put like that you'd probably answer 'no', but chances are that you've already eaten some today, in the form of sodium chloride or salt.

Sodium the element is a highly reactive metal - the internet is full of videos of people dropping pieces of sodium in water to see the explosion that results.

This reactivity means it is never found naturally in its elemental form but exists almost always on Earth as the Na+ cation.

This cation is usually found in partnership with other more interesting anions - think, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), sodium stearate (soap), and sodium azide (used to inflate airbags in cars).

Sodium is also a key part of the sodium-potassium pump in the human body, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 79 of Elemental.

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