1.
Carbon
–
Carbon is a chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds, three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radioactive isotope, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity, Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earths crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. It is the second most abundant element in the body by mass after oxygen. The atoms of carbon can bond together in different ways, termed allotropes of carbon, the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form, for example, graphite is opaque and black while diamond is highly transparent. Graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper, while diamond is the hardest naturally occurring material known, graphite is a good electrical conductor while diamond has a low electrical conductivity. Under normal conditions, diamond, carbon nanotubes, and graphene have the highest thermal conductivities of all known materials, all carbon allotropes are solids under normal conditions, with graphite being the most thermodynamically stable form. They are chemically resistant and require high temperature to react even with oxygen, the most common oxidation state of carbon in inorganic compounds is +4, while +2 is found in carbon monoxide and transition metal carbonyl complexes. The largest sources of carbon are limestones, dolomites and carbon dioxide, but significant quantities occur in organic deposits of coal, peat, oil. For this reason, carbon has often referred to as the king of the elements. The allotropes of carbon graphite, one of the softest known substances, and diamond. It bonds readily with other small atoms including other carbon atoms, Carbon is known to form almost ten million different compounds, a large majority of all chemical compounds. Carbon also has the highest sublimation point of all elements, although thermodynamically prone to oxidation, carbon resists oxidation more effectively than elements such as iron and copper that are weaker reducing agents at room temperature. Carbon is the element, with a ground-state electron configuration of 1s22s22p2. Its first four ionisation energies,1086.5,2352.6,4620.5 and 6222.7 kJ/mol, are higher than those of the heavier group 14 elements. Carbons covalent radii are normally taken as 77.2 pm,66.7 pm and 60.3 pm, although these may vary depending on coordination number, in general, covalent radius decreases with lower coordination number and higher bond order. Carbon compounds form the basis of all life on Earth
2.
Vacuum distillation
–
This distillation method works on the principle that boiling occurs when the vapor pressure of a liquid exceeds the ambient pressure. Vacuum distillation is used with or without heating the mixture, laboratory-scale vacuum distillation is used when liquids to be distilled have high atmospheric boiling points or chemically change at temperatures near their atmospheric boiling points. Temperature sensitive materials also require vacuum distillation to remove solvents from the mixture without damaging the product, another reason vacuum distillation is used is that compared to steam distillation there is a lower level of residue build up. This is important in applications where heat transfer is produced using heat exchangers. There are many applications for vacuum distillation as well as many types of distillation set-ups. Safety is an important consideration when using glassware as part of the set-up, all of the glass components should be carefully examined for scratches and cracks which could result in implosions when the vacuum is applied. Wrapping as much of the glassware with tape as is practical helps to prevent dangerous scattering of glass shards in the event of an implosion, rotary evaporation is a type of vacuum distillation apparatus used to remove bulk solvents from the liquid being distilled. It is also used by regulatory agencies for determining the amount of solvents in paint, coatings. Rotary evaporation set-ups include an apparatus referred to as a Rotovap which rotates the distillation flask to enhance the distillation, rotating the flask throws up liquid on the walls of the flask and thus increases the surface area for evaporation. Heat is often applied to the distillation flask by partially immersing it in a heated bath of water or oil. Typically, the vacuum in such systems is generated by a water aspirator or a pump of some type. Some compounds have high boiling point temperatures as well as being air sensitive, a simple laboratory vacuum distillation glassware set-up can be used, in which the vacuum can be replaced with an inert gas after the distillation is complete. However, this is not a completely satisfactory system if it is desired to collect fractions under a reduced pressure, for better results or for very air sensitive compounds, either a Perkin triangle distillation set-up or a short-path distillation set-up can be used. To do this, the distillate receiver vessel is first isolated from the vacuum by means of the Teflon valves, the vacuum over the sample is then replaced with an inert gas and the distillate receiver can then be stoppered and removed from the system. Vacuum distillation of moderately air/water-sensitive liquid can be done using standard Schlenk-line techniques, when assembling the set-up apparatus, all of the connecting lines are clamped so that they cannot pop off. Care is taken to prevent potential bumping as the liquid in the still pot degases, while establishing the vacuum, the flow of coolant is started through the short-path distillation head. Once the desired vacuum is established, heat is applied to the still pot, if needed, the first portion of distillate can be discarded by purging with inert gas and changing out the distillate receiver. When the distillation is complete, the heat is removed, the connection is closed, and inert gas is purged through the distillation head
3.
High-performance liquid chromatography
–
High-performance liquid chromatography, is a technique in analytical chemistry used to separate, identify, and quantify each component in a mixture. It relies on pumps to pass a pressurized liquid solvent containing the mixture through a column filled with a solid adsorbent material. HPLC has been used for manufacturing, legal, research, Chromatography can be described as a mass transfer process involving adsorption. HPLC relies on pumps to pass a pressurized liquid and a sample mixture through a column filled with adsorbent, the active component of the column, the adsorbent, is typically a granular material made of solid particles, 2–50 micrometers in size. The components of the mixture are separated from each other due to their different degrees of interaction with the adsorbent particles. The pressurized liquid is typically a mixture of solvents and is referred to as a mobile phase and its composition and temperature play a major role in the separation process by influencing the interactions taking place between sample components and adsorbent. These interactions are physical in nature, such as hydrophobic, dipole–dipole and ionic, due to the small sample amount separated in analytical HPLC, typical column dimensions are 2. 1–4.6 mm diameter, and 30–250 mm length. Also HPLC columns are made with smaller sorbent particles and this gives HPLC superior resolving power when separating mixtures, which makes it a popular chromatographic technique. The schematic of an HPLC instrument typically includes a sampler, pumps, the sampler brings the sample mixture into the mobile phase stream which carries it into the column. The pumps deliver the flow and composition of the mobile phase through the column. The detector generates a signal proportional to the amount of sample component emerging from the column, a digital microprocessor and user software control the HPLC instrument and provide data analysis. Some models of pumps in a HPLC instrument can mix multiple solvents together in ratios changing in time. Various detectors are in use, such as UV/Vis, photodiode array or based on mass spectrometry. Most HPLC instruments also have an oven that allows for adjusting the temperature at which the separation is performed. The sample mixture to be separated and analyzed is introduced, in a small volume. The components of the move through the column at different velocities. The velocity of each component depends on its nature, on the nature of the stationary phase. The time at which an analyte elutes is called its retention time
4.
Gold
–
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
5.
Ultraviolet
–
Ultraviolet is an electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength from 10 nm to 400 nm, shorter than that of visible light but longer than X-rays. UV radiation constitutes about 10% of the light output of the Sun. It is also produced by electric arcs and specialized lights, such as lamps, tanning lamps. Consequently, the effects of UV are greater than simple heating effects. Suntan, freckling and sunburn are familiar effects of over-exposure, along with risk of skin cancer. Living things on dry land would be damaged by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun if most of it were not filtered out by the Earths atmosphere. More-energetic, shorter-wavelength extreme UV below 121 nm ionizes air so strongly that it is absorbed before it reaches the ground, Ultraviolet is also responsible for the formation of bone-strengthening vitamin D in most land vertebrates, including humans. The UV spectrum thus has both beneficial and harmful to human health. Ultraviolet rays are invisible to most humans, the lens in a human eye ordinarily filters out UVB frequencies or higher, and humans lack color receptor adaptations for ultraviolet rays. Under some conditions, children and young adults can see ultraviolet down to wavelengths of about 310 nm, near-UV radiation is visible to some insects, mammals, and birds. Small birds have a fourth color receptor for ultraviolet rays, this gives birds true UV vision, reindeer use near-UV radiation to see polar bears, who are poorly visible in regular light because they blend in with the snow. UV also allows mammals to see urine trails, which is helpful for animals to find food in the wild. The males and females of some species look identical to the human eye. Ultraviolet means beyond violet, violet being the color of the highest frequencies of visible light, Ultraviolet has a higher frequency than violet light. He called them oxidizing rays to emphasize chemical reactivity and to them from heat rays. The terms chemical and heat rays were eventually dropped in favour of ultraviolet and infrared radiation, in 1878 the effect of short-wavelength light on sterilizing bacteria was discovered. By 1903 it was known the most effective wavelengths were around 250 nm, in 1960, the effect of ultraviolet radiation on DNA was established. The discovery of the ultraviolet radiation below 200 nm, named vacuum ultraviolet because it is absorbed by air, was made in 1893 by the German physicist Victor Schumann
6.
Nanotechnology
–
Nanotechnology is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. It is therefore common to see the plural form nanotechnologies as well as nanoscale technologies to refer to the range of research. Because of the variety of applications, governments have invested billions of dollars in nanotechnology research. Until 2012, through its National Nanotechnology Initiative, the USA has invested 3.7 billion dollars, scientists currently debate the future implications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology may be able to create new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, biomaterials energy production. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether regulation of nanotechnology is warranted. The term nano-technology was first used by Norio Taniguchi in 1974, also in 1986, Drexler co-founded The Foresight Institute to help increase public awareness and understanding of nanotechnology concepts and implications. In the 1980s, two major breakthroughs sparked the growth of nanotechnology in modern era, the microscopes developers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. Binnig, Quate and Gerber also invented the atomic force microscope that year. Second, Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley, and Robert Curl, in the early 2000s, the field garnered increased scientific, political, and commercial attention that led to both controversy and progress. Controversies emerged regarding the definitions and potential implications of nanotechnologies, exemplified by the Royal Societys report on nanotechnology, challenges were raised regarding the feasibility of applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, which culminated in a public debate between Drexler and Smalley in 2001 and 2003. Meanwhile, commercialization of products based on advancements in nanoscale technologies began emerging and these products are limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials and do not involve atomic control of matter. Governments moved to promote and fund research into nanotechnology, such as in the U. S, by the mid-2000s new and serious scientific attention began to flourish. Projects emerged to produce nanotechnology roadmaps which center on atomically precise manipulation of matter and discuss existing and projected capabilities, goals, Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. This covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced, one nanometer is one billionth, or 10−9, of a meter. By comparison, typical carbon-carbon bond lengths, or the spacing between atoms in a molecule, are in the range 0. 12–0.15 nm. On the other hand, the smallest cellular life-forms, the bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma, are around 200 nm in length, by convention, nanotechnology is taken as the scale range 1 to 100 nm following the definition used by the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the US. The lower limit is set by the size of atoms since nanotechnology must build its devices from atoms and molecules
7.
Sapphire
–
Sapphire is a gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide. It is typically blue in color, but natural fancy sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, the only color which sapphire cannot be is red - as red colored corundum is called ruby, another corundum variety. This variety in color is due to amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, copper. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry and they also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Sapphire is the birthstone for September and the gem of the 45th anniversary, a sapphire jubilee occurs after 65 years. Sapphire is one of the two gem-varieties of corundum, the other being ruby, although blue is the best-known sapphire color, they occur in other colors, including gray and black, and they can be colorless. A a pinkish orange variety of sapphire is called padparadscha, significant sapphire deposits are found in Eastern Australia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Madagascar, East Africa, and in North America in a few locations, mostly in Montana. Sapphire and rubies are often found in the geological setting. Every sapphire mine produces a range of quality - and origin is not a guarantee of quality. For sapphire, Kashmir receives the highest premium although Burma, Sri Lanka, the cost of natural sapphires varies depending on their color, clarity, size, cut, and overall quality. For gems of exceptional quality, an independent determination from a respected laboratory such as the GIA, gemstone color can be described in terms of hue, saturation, and tone. Hue is commonly understood as the color of the gemstone, saturation refers to the vividness or brightness of the hue, and tone is the lightness to darkness of the hue. Blue sapphire exists in various mixtures of its primary and secondary hues, various tonal levels, blue sapphires are evaluated based upon the purity of their primary hue. Purple, violet, and green are the most common secondary hues found in blue sapphires, violet and purple can contribute to the overall beauty of the color, while green is considered to be distinctly negative. Blue sapphires with up to 15% violet or purple are generally said to be of fine quality, gray is the normal saturation modifier or mask found in blue sapphires. Gray reduces the saturation or brightness of the hue, and therefore has a negative effect. The 423-carat Logan sapphire in the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, sapphires in colors other than blue are called fancy or parti colored sapphires. Fancy sapphires are found in yellow, orange, green sapphires, brown, purple
8.
Nitrogen
–
Nitrogen is a chemical element with symbol N and atomic number 7. It was first discovered and isolated by Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Henry Cavendish had independently done so at about the same time, Rutherford is generally accorded the credit because his work was published first. Nitrogen is the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, the name comes from the Greek πνίγειν to choke, directly referencing nitrogens asphyxiating properties. It is an element in the universe, estimated at about seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dinitrogen, a colourless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula N2, dinitrogen forms about 78% of Earths atmosphere, making it the most abundant uncombined element. Nitrogen occurs in all organisms, primarily in amino acids, in the nucleic acids, the human body contains about 3% nitrogen by mass, the fourth most abundant element in the body after oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The nitrogen cycle describes movement of the element from the air, into the biosphere and organic compounds, many industrially important compounds, such as ammonia, nitric acid, organic nitrates, and cyanides, contain nitrogen. The extremely strong bond in elemental nitrogen, the second strongest bond in any diatomic molecule. Synthetically produced ammonia and nitrates are key industrial fertilisers, and fertiliser nitrates are key pollutants in the eutrophication of water systems. Apart from its use in fertilisers and energy-stores, nitrogen is a constituent of organic compounds as diverse as Kevlar used in high-strength fabric, Nitrogen is a constituent of every major pharmacological drug class, including antibiotics. Many notable nitrogen-containing drugs, such as the caffeine and morphine or the synthetic amphetamines. Nitrogen compounds have a long history, ammonium chloride having been known to Herodotus. They were well known by the Middle Ages, alchemists knew nitric acid as aqua fortis, as well as other nitrogen compounds such as ammonium salts and nitrate salts. The mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids was known as aqua regia, celebrated for its ability to dissolve gold, the discovery of nitrogen is attributed to the Scottish physician Daniel Rutherford in 1772, who called it noxious air. Though he did not recognise it as a different chemical substance, he clearly distinguished it from Joseph Blacks fixed air. The fact that there was a component of air that does not support combustion was clear to Rutherford, Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, who referred to it as burnt air or phlogisticated air. Nitrogen gas was inert enough that Antoine Lavoisier referred to it as air or azote, from the Greek word άζωτικός. In an atmosphere of nitrogen, animals died and flames were extinguished
9.
Oxygen
–
Oxygen is a chemical element with symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the group on the periodic table and is a highly reactive nonmetal. By mass, oxygen is the third-most abundant element in the universe, after hydrogen, at standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bind to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the formula O2. This is an important part of the atmosphere and diatomic oxygen gas constitutes 20. 8% of the Earths atmosphere, additionally, as oxides the element makes up almost half of the Earths crust. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, conversely, oxygen is continuously replenished by photosynthesis, which uses the energy of sunlight to produce oxygen from water and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is too reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic action of living organisms. Another form of oxygen, ozone, strongly absorbs ultraviolet UVB radiation, but ozone is a pollutant near the surface where it is a by-product of smog. At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft, the name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier, whose experiments with oxygen helped to discredit the then-popular phlogiston theory of combustion and corrosion. One of the first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium. In his work Pneumatica, Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle, Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in the vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philos work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration, Oxygen was discovered by the Polish alchemist Sendivogius, who considered it the philosophers stone. In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion, English chemist John Mayow refined this work by showing that fire requires only a part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus. From this he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion, Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that the nitroaereus must have combined with it. Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract De respiratione. Robert Hooke, Ole Borch, Mikhail Lomonosov, and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in the 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element. This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory, which was then the favored explanation of those processes. Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher, one part, called phlogiston, was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx. The fact that a substance like wood gains overall weight in burning was hidden by the buoyancy of the combustion products
10.
Silicon
–
Silicon is a chemical element with symbol Si and atomic number 14. A hard and brittle crystalline solid with a metallic luster. It is a member of group 14 in the table, along with carbon above it and germanium, tin, lead. It is not very reactive, although more reactive than germanium, Silicon is the eighth most common element in the universe by mass, but very rarely occurs as the pure element in the Earths crust. It is most widely distributed in dusts, sands, planetoids, over 90% of the Earths crust is composed of silicate minerals, making silicon the second most abundant element in the Earths crust after oxygen. Most silicon is used commercially without being separated, and often with little processing of the natural minerals, such use includes industrial construction with clays, silica sand, and stone. Silicate is used in Portland cement for mortar and stucco, and mixed with sand and gravel to make concrete for walkways, foundations. Silicates are used in whiteware ceramics such as porcelain, and in traditional quartz-based soda-lime glass, Silicon compounds such as silicon carbide are used as abrasives and components of high-strength ceramics. Elemental silicon also has an impact on the modern world economy. Most free silicon is used in the refining, aluminium-casting. Silicon is the basis of the widely used synthetic polymers called silicones, Silicon is an essential element in biology, although only tiny traces are required by animals. However, various sea sponges and microorganisms, such as diatoms and radiolaria, silica is deposited in many plant tissues, such as in the bark and wood of Chrysobalanaceae and the silica cells and silicified trichomes of Cannabis sativa, horsetails and many grasses. Silicon is a solid at room temperature, with a point of 1,414 °C. Like water, it has a density in a liquid state than in a solid state and it expands when it freezes. With a relatively high conductivity of 149 W·m−1·K−1, silicon conducts heat well. In its crystalline form, pure silicon has a gray color, like germanium, silicon is rather strong, very brittle, and prone to chipping. Silicon, like carbon and germanium, crystallizes in a cubic crystal structure with a lattice spacing of 0.5430710 nm. The outer electron orbital of silicon, like that of carbon, has four valence electrons, the 1s, 2s, 2p and 3s subshells are completely filled while the 3p subshell contains two electrons out of a possible six
11.
Petroleum
–
Petroleum is a naturally occurring, yellow-to-black liquid found in geological formations beneath the Earths surface, which is commonly refined into various types of fuels. Components of petroleum are separated using a technique called fractional distillation and it consists of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other organic compounds. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that are made up of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, usually zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock, Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a variety of materials. Concern over the depletion of the earths finite reserves of oil, the burning of fossil fuels plays the major role in the current episode of global warming. The word petroleum comes from Greek, πέτρα for rocks and Greek, the term was found in 10th-century Old English sources. It was used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer, Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times, and is now important across society, including in economy, politics and technology. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. By 347 AD, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China, early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. The mythological origins of the oil fields at Yenangyaung, and its hereditary monopoly control by 24 families, Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century, both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze, the coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. In 1848 Young set up a small business refining the crude oil, Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at a low heat, in creating a fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. The production of oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated 17 October 1850. In 1850 Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under the title of E. W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian, the worlds first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz. The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America, edwin Drakes 1859 well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, is popularly considered the first modern well
12.
Bromine
–
Bromine is a chemical element with symbol Br and atomic number 35. It is the third-lightest halogen, and is a fuming red-brown liquid at room temperature that readily to form a similarly coloured gas. Its properties are intermediate between those of chlorine and iodine. Isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig and Antoine Jérôme Balard, its name was derived from the Ancient Greek βρῶμος stench, referencing its sharp and disagreeable smell. Elemental bromine is very reactive and thus does not occur free in nature, while it is rather rare in the Earths crust, the high solubility of the bromide ion has caused its accumulation in the oceans. Commercially the element is easily extracted from brine pools, mostly in the United States, Israel, the mass of bromine in the oceans is about one three-hundredth of that of chlorine. At high temperatures, organobromine compounds readily convert to free bromine atoms and this effect makes organobromine compounds useful as fire retardants and more than half the bromine produced worldwide each year is put to this purpose. Unfortunately, the same property causes sunlight to convert volatile organobromine compounds to free bromine atoms in the atmosphere, as a result, many organobromide compounds—such as the pesticide methyl bromide—are no longer used. Bromine compounds are used in well drilling fluids, in photographic film. Bromine has sometimes been considered to be essential in humans, but with the support of only limited circumstantial evidence. As a pharmaceutical, the bromide ion has inhibitory effects on the central nervous system. They retain niche uses as antiepileptics, bromine was discovered independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig and Antoine Balard, in 1825 and 1826, respectively. Löwig isolated bromine from a water spring from his hometown Bad Kreuznach in 1825. Löwig used a solution of the mineral salt saturated with chlorine, after evaporation of the ether a brown liquid remained. With this liquid as a sample for his work he applied for a position in the laboratory of Leopold Gmelin in Heidelberg, the publication of the results was delayed and Balard published his results first. Balard found bromine chemicals in the ash of seaweed from the marshes of Montpellier. The seaweed was used to produce iodine, but also contained bromine, Balard distilled the bromine from a solution of seaweed ash saturated with chlorine. In his publication, Balard states that he changed the name from muride to brôme on the proposal of M. Anglada, brôme derives from the Greek βρωμος
. Bibcode:2009PhRvB..80l5421G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.80.125421.
