What is Cobalt?
Cobalt is a metal that has been used for thousands of years in an array of applications. It does not occur by itself in nature, but can be found in many ores. Commonly, cobalt is found in minerals containing nickel and copper, as well as in combinations of arsenic and sulfur. Cobalt has radioactive isotopes, which are used from medicine to industry.
Cobalt is produced as a mining by-product of copper and nickel mining. The main sources of cobalt are Zambia, Canada, Australia, Russia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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History
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Since the time of the ancients, cobalt's coloring properties were known. Cobalt has been found in China, in artifacts dating from the Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty. Further back, in the ruins of Pompeii, jewelry from Persia, and Egyptian sculpture were discovered to have cobalt.
However, cobalt wasn't isolated until about 1735, by George Brandt, a Swedish chemist. Until he did this, miners had used the name kobold to describe the minerals they found that contained cobalt.
Features
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Cobalt is a brittle chemical element in the transition metal group, whose chemical symbol is "Co". Its atomic number (the number of protons in an atom) is 27. The color of cobalt is a lustrous gray. It is a ferromagnetic metal, meaning that it magnetizes easily.
Cobalt comes in a variety of isotopes, most ranging from those with a highly short half-life to cobalt-59, its most stable form. Most of cobalt's other isotopes barely last half a day, most not lasting more than one second. -
Considerations
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The name cobalt comes from the German word kobalt, a variant of the word kobold. This word translates into English as "goblin." It was given this name because of the illnesses contracted in silver mines that also contained cobalt ores.
Function
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Cobalt makes up a major part of the cobalamin coenzymes. As such, cobalt is a major part of vitamin B-12 (a cobalamin), making it an essential trace element for people and other living beings such as bacteria, algae, fungi and animals.
In art, cobalt is used in such ways as to make glass blue, blue paint, blue ink and a blue ceramic glaze.
Cobalt in industry is used to make wear-resistant, strong and magnetic alloys. Cobalt-containing alloys are the major use of the element. The isotope cobalt-60 is used to examine structural integrity of such things as welds, and to examine the density of materials.
In medicine, the isotope cobalt-60 is used as part of radiotherapy and to sterilize medical waste and supplies. The isotope cobalt-57 is used as a tracer for vitamin B-12 uptake.
The cobalt-60 isotope is used in the food industry for sterilization. Through radiation, the process of cold pasteurization is produced.
Warning
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Cobalt has damaging effects when it is powdered, causing contact dermatitis and presenting a fire hazard. Cobalt-60 is known for giving off such a powder.
When too much is absorbed, cobalt causes carcinogenic and mutagenic damage to living beings. This is known as cobalt poisoning.
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