Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Really neat to see a super pure sample...

Jdurg - 23-9-2006 at 14:46

In my element collection I have a good number of samples that I had picked up early on at a somewhat cheaper price due to a somewhat less than perfect purity. As time has gone on and my funding has increased, I've improved on some of these samples and obtained much greater purity samples.

One of these samples that I just upgraded was my cesium metal. I had bought a 5-gram ampoule of it for only $133 a couple of years ago. It was a good purity sample, but over time I noticed that it wasn't sealed in the cleanest of ampoules as each time the cesium melted it would stick to dust particles and other "junk" inside the ampoule. In addition, I think it may have only been 99% pure to start with. I noticed that when it melted it did so somewhat slowly. Same with the solidification. Over the past two years, the glass took on a golden yellow hue to it as the dust and particulate matter inside the ampoule reacted with the cesium.

A buddy of mine who deals with a lot of pure elements had just recently obtained a nice 5-gram ampoule of cesium that was listed as 99.99% pure. He needed some cesium to do some things but didn't need the high purity. Any purity would do. I mentioned the aging cesium I had and he said that he'd be willing to make a straight up swap. I said sure and just recently picked up the BEAUTIFUL 5-grams of cesium in a pre-scored glass ampoule. (I need to figure out a way to solidify that scored area so I don't accidentally break open the ampoule. For now, I'm just not touching it).

What I've noticed right away is that this higher purity sample melts VERY sharply. That is, it goes from solid to liquid at a very specific temperature point and solidifies in the same manner. It is much brighter and reflective than my other cesium sample was and this sharp melting point is the biggest difference. It's amazing how much the purity of a sample affects things like melting point, color, sheen, etc.

Odyssèus - 23-9-2006 at 16:30

Neat. I think its interesting that many metals form crystals at very high purity that dont normally, like this 4-5N (99.99-99.999%) purity bismuth crystal I have, or the amazing things you can do with large single crystals of silicon.

I've never seen cesium except for pictures. Could you describe how cohesive and adhesive (to the glass) it is, it's viscosity etc?

chemoleo - 23-9-2006 at 16:34

Or better, post a picture!

What are the amazing things you can do with Si crystals other than semiconductors?

Odyssèus - 23-9-2006 at 18:12

Thats what I was referring to.

12AX7 - 23-9-2006 at 21:48

This 6n (I think) Si crystal lump I have I was going to embed in aluminum... need a better flux and way to do it...

Tim

Jdurg - 24-9-2006 at 12:50

It will be a while before I can get some photos taken. My little photography booth that I put together to take high quality images of my samples got a bit wrecked during storage so I need to put together a better one.

For the physical propterties of Cesium, it is a lot like water in terms of how it flows and its cohesiveness. Basically, it's the complete opposite of mercury. It doesn't really "wet" the glass, but it will stick to spots in the glass that aren't smooth and it's kind of difficult getting the tiny little micro-dots off of the glass afterward. I'm pretty sure that if I take a heat gun and blow hot air towards the glass the little drops there will warm up and run down the side of the glass into the bigger portion collected at the bottom. I just don't want to mess around with the glass too much as it is an ampoule designed for actual use of the chemical within so there is a pre-scored mark around the neck of the glass. I would rather not have the glass break there so I'm just not going to touch it a whole lot. :D

My other ampoule was nice in that it wasn't pre-scored so I would be willing to mess around with it a bit more, but the inside of the glass was dirty so the Cs kept reacting with the little bits of dust particles and then sticking to them on the sides of the glass. After a while, everything became hazy golden in color and a bit blurry from the attack by the cesium. Still, it is neat having some Cs and if it didn't cost me over a hundred bucks I'd have "disposed" of it in a more exciting manner. Hehe. :P:D Once I can get an inexpensive source of Rubidium so I can get a matching 5-gram ampoule of that, I'll be disposing of my one gram ampoule in a somewhat loud manner. ;)

Odyssèus - 24-9-2006 at 18:45

Interesting. I wouldve thought it would be similar to mercury.

You could try dipping the scored end in something like epoxy or that plastic resin stuff, so you have a protective layer to keep it from breaking. That might be easier than trying to repair the scored part.

The_Davster - 24-9-2006 at 21:04

I have some obscenly pure Ge, Sb, Te and they are quite pretty. They have 4-5 9s AFTER the decimal:o. Their crystal structures are visible and the fractured faces simply beautiful. I have seen lower purity Sb and Te, which are nowhere near as nice as the high purity ones. Never seen germanium of a not-so-pure sample, so for all I know its always beautiful. Once saw a 99.999999999(yes thats right, 9 9s after the decimal, hopefully the proff who told me the purity was not lying) sample of Ge, almost the size of my palm(I got to fondle it, many a time) and the various crystal structure regions in it were clearly visible. It was beyond beautiful, not a word to describe it, only 'orgasmic' comes close.

Cs:Could always embed the entire thing in clear epoxy. But personally I would leave it as is....untill I have the equipment to play with it;).

[Edited on 25-9-2006 by rogue chemist]

[Edited on 25-9-2006 by rogue chemist]

woelen - 24-9-2006 at 23:20

Rogue Scientist, is your tellurium like this?

http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/compounds/telluriu...

The stuff really looks like metal.

I also have some less pure Te (small prills, size appr. 2 mm per granule), and that stuff is black. I use that black stuff for experiments, the nice crystals I use for display purposes.

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Jdurg, How terribly expensive such a Cs sample is. I'm also still looking for Cs and Rb, but I still could not find any source.

Odyssèus - 25-9-2006 at 05:04

Wow! I didnt know they could even come close to 11N of purity yet! The most pure I've heard of is 7N of purity for silicon.

unionised - 25-9-2006 at 10:10

For the benefit of those with a lot more money than sense, copper is available at very high purity 9N
http://www.sonocable.com/products_stradivarious3.shtml

12AX7 - 25-9-2006 at 16:32

Oh, silicon goes to 12N I think. 10^-12 range dopants and all. Really well and truely insane stuff at that rate...

Tim

Jdurg - 25-9-2006 at 17:47

Quote:
Originally posted by woelen
Rogue Scientist, is your tellurium like this?

http://woelen.scheikunde.net/science/chem/compounds/telluriu...

The stuff really looks like metal.

I also have some less pure Te (small prills, size appr. 2 mm per granule), and that stuff is black. I use that black stuff for experiments, the nice crystals I use for display purposes.

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Jdurg, How terribly expensive such a Cs sample is. I'm also still looking for Cs and Rb, but I still could not find any source.


Hey Woelen. I got my five grams of Cesium for $133 a few years back and just picked up a matching ampoule of Rubidium for $150. The problem is that my source doesn't ship things like the alkali metals overseas so it kind of is a bummer for you. :(

I would dip the ampoule in some resin, but when resin solidifies it exerts a great deal of pressure on whatever it surrounds. I believe that the glass is thin enough in the neck area that it would just shatter and cause a big "uh-oh".

I was really happy today to be able to pick up a matching rubidium ampoule. Now I have a nice sample of Rb and Cs for my collection. I will probably get rid of my old Rb sample in a vat of water. :D

The crystals that really pure metals form are amazing. My germanium and tellurium are very pure samples and the crystalline structure they show is remarkable. Same for antimony. Virtually all of my Lanthanoids are exhibiting a nice crystalline structure to them which is great to see, though the scandium is the best looking of them all. It's funny because you really don't think of metals as forming crystals.

I hope to have my photography area set up soon so that I can get good images of my Rubidium and Cesium ampoules as well as my Thorium and Uranium. In a few weeks I should have my halogens back as right now I am having them sealed into a solid cast-resin block for safe storage and ease of display.

12AX7 - 25-9-2006 at 21:19

Quote:
Originally posted by Jdurg
It's funny because you really don't think of metals as forming crystals.


Hmm, I oughta send you a bar of 1999 aluminum. Melted from electrical wire, seems to be pure -- about 1/4" blocky crystals on the top when it solidified.

Soft too, a bar an inch across and four feet long can be bent by hand with difficulty.

Tim

Odyssèus - 26-9-2006 at 04:57

Electrical wire? Is that a special kind of aluminum electrical wire or is all Al wire that pure?

Sounds really neat though.

12AX7 - 26-9-2006 at 07:50

Should be, conductivity goes way down with impurities. You need all the conduction you can get with something like aluminum.

Copper, electrical and plumbing grades are made from the same 99.99%-or-so grade of copper, too.

Tim

pantone159 - 26-9-2006 at 08:19

Quote:
Originally posted by woelen
I'm also still looking for Cs and Rb, but I still could not find any source.


Have you looked at these? I think they are in Europe.
http://www.smart-elements.com/index.php?
http://www.element-collection.com/

My source for Cs and Rb (I got 5g of 99+% of these for $150 each) won't be useful to you. Not only that he won't ship to Netherlands, he won't ship these metals ANYWHERE. I had to drive 3000 km to pick them up myself. :o

The_Davster - 26-9-2006 at 17:44

Woelen, it looks similar to your Te, but shinier. Ill post a pic later this week, as I am quite sick right now. It looks noticeably different, I would blame photography, but I am not sure I can blame photography as you are some sort of photographer I think.

My 99.9 lanthanoids are only slightly noticeably crystaline. Except the Yb, that stuff is cool.

The_Davster - 1-10-2006 at 16:59

99.9999 Te


EDIT: I'm so pretty, oh so pretty....

[Edited on 2-10-2006 by rogue chemist]

tellurium.JPG - 33kB

Jdurg - 1-10-2006 at 17:44

Very nice. I've attached a photo of the cesium I took recently, though I must admit that the image doesn't really do the cesium justice. I also threw up my photos of the Thorium and Uranium that I own.

Cesium.jpg - 30kB

Jdurg - 1-10-2006 at 17:46

Here's my Thorium.

Thorium.jpg - 28kB

Jdurg - 1-10-2006 at 17:49

Finally, here's my Uranium. I used to have it stored under mineral oil in a tightly capped and sealed glass vial, but even then it was slowly oxidizing and becoming quite dark. In addition, the Uranium Oxide coating was starting to impregnate the glass. A friend of mine is able to ampoule virtually anything and said that he'd be willing to clean up a part of the Uranium and then seal it up for me. I said "sure". When we initially went to ampoule the Uranium, it was bright and reflective like my Thorium, but the heat needed to ampoule it caused it to oxidize when the little bits of oxygen that got through the argon blanket hit the metal. Still, you can see the bare metal and the turnings are a nice blackish/green color which is neat to see.

Uranium.jpg - 30kB

woelen - 2-10-2006 at 07:08

Jdurg, these are very good samples. I like the thorium and uranium samples very much. They look good and it really is special to have these metals around. Probably for me it will ever remain a dream to have these materials. They are absolutely forbidden over here (any radioactive material is forbidden) and I still dare not have any uranium or one of its salt being shipped to me from the USA or Canada. I'm too afraid that it is intercepted in customs.

Rogue scientist, the metallic shine of your sample of tellurium looks similar to mine. My picture is somewhat dark and the metallic lustre is not expressed sufficiently well in the picture I have on my website now. I'll make a new picture and put it over there. My tellurium has a more pronounced crystalline appearance with nice flat fractures and clearly visible parallel lines. The stuff I have was sold as 99.999%, so yours has a 10 times better purity.

I also have a few grams of some 99.99% Te. That material looks dark grey with only little metallic lustre. I use that Te for experiments and keep my nice-looking pieces for the element collection.

Jdurg - 4-10-2006 at 14:15

Thanks woelen. It is nice having nice samples around, though it still feels "odd" having a radioactive metal in my hands. It's just hard to comprehend how every single second parts of the metal are exploding into an array of particles and energy. It just doesn't seem "right".

For a lot of my samples it is really remarkable seeing how the purity affects the look of the sample. The higher purity metals really exhibit a wonderful looking crystalline structure and look nothing like metal. At the same time, I kind of wish there was a way to clean off one half of each of my Lanthanoid samples and ampoule it half unoxidized and half oxidized to show the full spectrum of the metal. Then again, I also with I had a much better photography booth and camera so that I could take some really detailed photos. :D

franklyn - 12-10-2010 at 22:59

http://images-of-elements.com

.

Wizzard - 13-10-2010 at 09:39

I know the gentleman who made this (and plenty of other crystalline metals) at his lab somplace in Europe:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Osmium_cl...

Edited so huge picture won't stretch page.

[Edited on 10-13-2010 by Polverone]

hissingnoise - 13-10-2010 at 11:45

Great!
In more ways than one . . .
Great size though, isn't always a good thing

psychokinetic - 13-10-2010 at 13:24

Quote: Originally posted by franklyn  
http://images-of-elements.com

.


I think that's the website that I've got through Chemsketch. Good time filler, ogling elements :)

metalresearcher - 13-10-2010 at 23:13

What about www.smart-elements.com ?
These samples look nice !