I may want to buy/extract beryllium and I wandered what was the worth of beryllium metal and beryllium sulphate.
If the value seams right I may extract some from one of its ore.
Thanks!woelen - 30-12-2012 at 06:18
Beryllium is quite expensive, but not really unaffordable. I once purchased some BeO from eBay, but this chemical is inert, very inert and I did not
manage to get it to react.
Two years ago, someone has given me a few grams of BeSO4.4H2O. It is a white crystalline solid, which somewhat resembles aluminium sulfate in its
chemical properties:
It is not a really interesting chemical. It is more fun because of having a beryllium compound, than because of interesting properties for chemical
experiments.
[Edited on 30-12-12 by woelen]plante1999 - 30-12-2012 at 06:23
Well, I asked this because I may extract some of its ore (and take the associated risk) keep 15g of it and sell the quantity I don't really need,
which should be 15-30g Be.
I wanted to know if the value of the ore was good for the Be content. As my ore lot is not cheap.
I do it more for the fun of the extraction than the product itself.
I will also post the procedure of extraction of course.
[Edited on 30-12-2012 by plante1999]sargent1015 - 30-12-2012 at 09:22
I second sargent. Beryllium and its salts is known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic, and can be absorbed via inhalation, dermal contact and
ingestion.
From Wiki;
"Compliance with the current U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit for beryllium of 2 µg/m3 has been
determined to be inadequate to protect workers from developing beryllium sensitization and CBD. The American Conference of Governmental Industrial
Hygienists (ACGIH), which is an independent organization of experts in the field of occupational health, has proposed a threshold limit value (TLV) of
0.05 µg/m3 in a 2006 Notice of Intended Change (NIC). This TLV is 40 times lower than the current OSHA permissible exposure limit, reflecting the
ACGIH analysis of best available peer-reviewed research data concerning how little airborne beryllium is required to cause sensitization and CBD."plante1999 - 30-12-2012 at 10:55
I read the wikipedia page, dermal contact and ingestion doesn't seams to port a treat to a chemist (ingestion should never be) however air
inhalation...phlogiston - 30-12-2012 at 12:44
The ceramic insulators from a common household microwave magnetron are often BeO, so that may be a cheap source. But since even Woelen hasn't managed
to get it to react, good luck.woelen - 30-12-2012 at 13:09
I tried dissolving it in concentrated aqueous acids and in concentrated aqueous base. I did not, however, try dissolving it in hot molten hydroxides
or near boiling 98% H2SO4. I hate doing high temperature chemistry with extremely corrosive molten acids or bases.
[Edited on 30-12-12 by woelen]AndersHoveland - 30-12-2012 at 21:36
I once purchased some BeO from eBay, but this chemical is inert, very inert and I did not manage to get it to react.
Did you try dissolving it in hydrochloric acid?
With some of these inert metal oxides, like Fe3O4, the presence of chloride ions really make a difference.woelen - 31-12-2012 at 03:37
Wikipedia tells that it also dissolves in a hot solution of ammonium sulfate in concentrated sulphuric acid. This is something I did not try (as I
wrote a few posts before, I dislike these hot melts very much due to the high risks involved). I'll try conc. HCl, but I have little hope. If this
does work, I'll report on that.12AX7 - 1-1-2013 at 11:55
Regarding ceramic vacuum tubes, I think new production uses alumina. If you find old production with white ceramic, it may be BeO; the alumina is
pink (I suppose they add chromia, which would make it polycrystalline ruby, oddly enough).
But yeah, if you can't get it to dissolve in bulk, don't even think about bashing it up to increase the surface area...
Timwoelen - 10-1-2013 at 06:10
Moved section on extraction of beryllium to a separate thread on the request of plante1999:
Please continue general discussion on beryllium and its compounds in this thread and if you want to add something specific about extraction of
beryllium from beryl ore, then use the other thread.
