Barium

Element Name: Barium
Atomic Number: 56
Atomic Mass: 137.327
Atomic Symbol: Ba
Melting Point: 727° C
Boiling Point: 1897° C

Barium comes from the Greek “barys” which means heavy. It’s a soft silvery-white metal which oxides quickly in air. Like most alkaline earth metals, barium is very reactive with the chalcogens. Sulfuric acid does not dissolve barium as the insoluble barium sulfate will form. Soluble barium compounds tend to be very poisonous, while insoluble barium compounds, such as barium sulfate, are safe enough to drink. Carl Scheele first identified it as a unique element in 1774, but it wasn’t until 1808 that Humphrey David managed to isolate it. There are seven naturally occurring isotopes of barium, and about 50 known isotopes. Barium is always divalent.

Interesting Facts:

Barite was found in the mountains near Bologna, Italy, in the early 1600s. Alchemist first thought that it could be the philosopher’s stone due to its unusual glow in the dark properties. Barium carbonate is a rat poison. Barium fluoride is used in infrared optics because it has a transparency range between 0.15-0.12µm. Benitoite is a rare blue gemstone made of barium, titanium, and silicate. It is the state gem of California. Barium sulfate was used in x-rays since 1908 as a contrast agent. In 1981 world production of barium peaked at 8.3 million tons – only 7-8% of it was actually used.

Sources:

Barium is relatively abundant in the earth’s crust, making up 0.0425% of it. Barite is the primary source of Barium, and the primary producers are China, the U.S., India, and Morocco; of these places China produces 50% of the world’s Barium. Countries such as Britain and Russia also have access to the less important witherite, producing only around 1% of the world’s barium each.

Industrial Uses:

Barium used to see broad use as a gettering agent. In vacuum tubes and other places where gases needed to be removed, elemental barium was placed in the side in order to react with any excess. Nowadays it’s used in several alloys and in the medical field. Barium Sulfate is non toxic and abundant. It sees use in the petroleum industry as a drilling fluid (when drilling straight down a fluid is typically used to keep the debris from damaging the equipment). It is also very dense, making it opaque on an x-ray. When consumed orally or anally it can be used as a radiocontrast to locate blockages and other issues in the digestive tract. Barium nitrate is used in fireworks to produce a green color. YBCO, an alloy of several metals including barium, is a high temperature superconductor.

References:

“Facts About Barium.” Livescience. Livescience.com, 19 June 2013. Web. 26 July
2016.
“Barium.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 July 2016.
“Barium Element Facts / Chemistry.” Chemicool. Chemicool.com, 15 Oct. 2012.
Web. 26 July 2016.
Gray, Theodore W., and Nick Mann. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every
Known Atom in the Universe. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2009. Print.