Dearden - 3-9-2011 at 18:25
Certain interesting chemicals can be bought from mineralogy suppliers.
For example, many semi-metals such as arsenic, antimony, bismuth, selenium and silicon are available in elemental form.
Of course the purity will be variable and the samples would need grinding up. However this could be a useful source, especially for people who like
ticking off boxes on their periodic table.
Chris
_________________________
billiards cues poison pool cuemcdermott cue
uchiacon - 3-9-2011 at 20:14
Yeah, it might be ok if you can obtain the relatively pure elemental specimens, but apart from that, I'd say it'd be useless, more or less.
Markups, markups, markups. These minerals probably pass through 5+ sets of hands before they get to you, so they overpriced already, usually to a
ridiculous amount.
I'd have to say that anyone wanting elemental samples would have tried these companies already anyway... not a particularly novel idea.
If you found a source of unregulated phosphorus/iodine/(insert other restricted chemical here) then this post would actually have a purpose.