#fluorine

ri-science:

On this day in 1834, Michael Faraday wrote about his continued failure to isolate fluorine. 

(Hey, you win some, you lose some).

The element had been identified in minerals, but as fluorine is extremely reactive and forms compounds with most other elements, it had never been isolated before.

This is what happens when fluorine gas hits coal…

Faraday experienced the problem of fluorine’s reactivity 184 years ago today, when he tried using electrolysis to disassociate fluorine from a lead fluorine compound.

Watch this video to learn more from our archives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihOD0F8Ukbc

Humphry Davy had previously attempted to isolate fluorine using electrolysis (which had led him to successfully isolate sodium and potassium). But Davy worked with hydrofluoric acid, which is corrosive and damaged his eyes.

Davy recovered, but many other experimenters with the dream of being the first to isolate fluorine, ended up poisoning themselves, and became known as the ‘fluorine martyrs’.

 After 74 years and many chemists’ trial and error, elemental fluorine was eventually isolated via electrolysis by Henri Moissan in 1886, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906.

Thanks to their hard work, now we can do fun things like putting fluorine (most reactive non-metal element) and caesium (super reactive metal element) together:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLOFaWdPxB0

mcm-curiosity:

Fluorite is known for its beauty and color, but even so, it cannot be classified as a gemstone for it is to soft to be valued as such. Compared to other gems such as Amethyst, Ruby, or Emerald, which are around 7-10 on the mohs scale of  hardness, Fluorite is only a 3.4 which knocks it off the official list. Even though it is not highly prized in the gem market it is prized by the chemical and industrial world. Fluorite also goes by Fluorspar which is used as a flux (coming from the Latin word for flow) in metallurgy because of its low melting point. It is often used to remove impurities like sulfur and phosphorus but also improve the fluidity of slag. In the United States it believed that anywhere between 20-60 pounds of fluorspar is used for every ton of metal, and it is often far above the metallurgic standards.  In Chemistry it is used as a source of Fluorine(F), hydrofluoric acid(HF), and lastly the creation of metallurgical flux. Usually it has to be 97% CaF2 to be acid grade and the HF that comes from it is used in refrigeration and foam blowing agents, and many common fluorite chemical we all use.

The high clarity, pure, and translucent pieces of Fluorite are sometimes used as lenses for microscopes, telescopes, and cameras. The more colorful pieces, that often reach the richness of actual gems like Saphire, Topaz, or Ruby, are sometimes used for the bright and glossy look in ceramics and opalescent glass-making. For it to be actually useful in durable glazes and glass it should be 85%-96% actual CaF2.

Fluorite has one more notable intriguing feature. The stone is one of the few minerals in the world that is fluorescent, and the feature was actually named after this stone. This where the stone emits light because the electrons get excited by normal light and other levels of radiation and then later release the energy after. It absorbs X-rays and Ultraviolet or even just violet light and then releases it as a longer, lower energy wave length. It is a type of natural luminescence.  

materialsworld:

Researchers create ultrathin invisibility cloak

Image courtesy of Xiang Zhang group

Scientists have successfully tested an ultra-thin invisibility cloak made of microscopic rectangular gold blocks that can conform to the shape of an object and is undetectable with visible light. 

The researchers from the US Department of Energy, Berkeley Lab and the University of California UC Berkeley created the cloak. It’s microscopic in size, but the researchers claim that the principles behind the technology should enable it to be developed full scale.

To create the cloak, the researchers used a thin layer of material called a metasurface made of magnesium fluoride, which was covered in millions of tiny golden antennae – each approximately 1/1000th the width of a human hair.

Each antenna is then designed to react with the light and scatter it back. ‘They actually delay the light, delay the reflection, in such a way that every point of your face would reflect light as if from a flat surface, like a mirror,’ as author, Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, told The Washington Post. The cloak can be turned on or off by switching the polarisation of the nanoantennas.

Lead author, Professor Xingjie Ni, Penn State University said, ‘The technology could eventually be used for military applications like making large objects like vehicles or aircraft or even individual soldiers invisible.’

To read the paper in full, visit bit.ly/1FkBelP

In other news:

·     Brighton’s Advanced Engineering Centre gets go-ahead

·     Nanoelectronics could get a boost from carbon research

·     Slow light speeds up the microscopic world

·     Cancer patient is given the world’s first 3D-printed ribcage

To find out more on materials science, packaging and engineering news, visit our website IOM3 or follow us on Twitter @MaterialsWorld for regular news updates. You can also now get access to our content any time, anywhere via our app. For more information, visit app.materialsworld.org.

ByNatalie Daniels – Writer and Social Media Co-Ordinator

On this day in 1834, Michael Faraday wrote about his continued failure to isolate fluorine. 

(Hey, you win some, you lose some).

The element had been identified in minerals, but as fluorine is extremely reactive and forms compounds with most other elements, it had never been isolated before.

This is what happens when fluorine gas hits coal…

Faraday experienced the problem of fluorine’s reactivity 184 years ago today, when he tried using electrolysis to disassociate fluorine from a lead fluorine compound.

Watch this video to learn more from our archives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihOD0F8Ukbc

Humphry Davy had previously attempted to isolate fluorine using electrolysis (which had led him to successfully isolate sodium and potassium). But Davy worked with hydrofluoric acid, which is corrosive and damaged his eyes.

Davy recovered, but many other experimenters with the dream of being the first to isolate fluorine, ended up poisoning themselves, and became known as the ‘fluorine martyrs’.

 After 74 years and many chemists’ trial and error, elemental fluorine was eventually isolated via electrolysis by Henri Moissan in 1886, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906.

Thanks to their hard work, now we can do fun things like putting fluorine (most reactive non-metal element) and caesium (super reactive metal element) together:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLOFaWdPxB0