Elemental

Zinc is a very useful metal that turns up in everything from sunscreen to paint, & galvanised metals to cereals, as well as brass instruments, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 97 of Elemental.

The major use of zinc is to galvanise steel in order to stop it corroding. This is because zinc oxidises more readily than iron, meaning it loses electrons more easily; chemists describe zinc as acting as the sacrificial anode, as oxidation occu...

Yttrium is yet another element named after the village of Ytterby and is important in the development of high temperature superconductors, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 96 of Elemental.

Here we go again - yet another element named after the Swedish village of Ytterby with a suitably tortuous extraction process, although surprisingly it is actually not a lanthanoid; it is a transition metal.

It is used in camping gas mantles alon...

Ytterbium is yet another lanthanoid named after the Swedish village of Ytterby, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 95 of Elemental.

Ytterbium is yet another lanthanoid named after the Swedish village of Ytterby. It is a sister element to erbium, terbium and yttrium.

The ytterbium lattice clock is one of the world's most accurate clocks, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 95 of Elemen...

Xenon is a noble gas that turns up in various lights, gets used in xenon ion propulsion systems for spacecraft & plays a key role in the search for dark matter, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 94 of Elemental.

Xenon is a noble gas that turns up in various lights.

It gets used in xenon ion propulsion systems for spacecraft.

Xenon plays a key role in the XENON detector which is used in the search for dark matter.

Xenon is also t...

Vanadium makes steel stronger & lighter, is being used in what will be the world's largest battery, and sea squirts are full of it, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 93 of Elemental.

Vanadium is a transition metal used to make steel stronger & lighter.

It is named after the Scandinavian goddess of beauty and fertility Vanadis.

Vanadium is being used in what will be the world's largest battery, and sea squirts are one of...

Named after the planet Uranus & associated with Hiroshima & nuclear bombs, uranium is the highest-numbered element found naturally in significant quantities on earth, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 92 of Elemental.

Uranium is named after the planet Uranus.

Uranium (atomic number 92) is the highest-numbered element found naturally in significant quantities on earth

It is associated with Hiroshima and nuclear bombs, says Professor Allan...

Tungsten's very high melting point made it an ideal filament for incandescent light bulbs, & as it is in some enzymes it is the heaviest element used in nature, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 91 of Elemental.

Tungsten is the metal with the highest melting point and this made it an ideal filament for incandescent light bulbs.

It also has the highest tensile strength of any metal.

It occurs in some enzymes (in a few bacteria and arc...

Titanium is light, strong, corrosion resistant & is used to repair broken limbs as it is able to get integrated into the bone, says Allan Blackman from AUT speaking from personal experience in ep 90 of Elemental.

Titanium is light, strong and corrosion resistant, and widely used in aircraft, bike frames, golf clubs and spectacle frames.

It is used to repair broken limbs as it is able to be integrated into the bone, says Professor All...

The element tin turns up in all sorts of alloys, but tin cans are - mostly - not made from tin, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT, in ep 89 of Elemental.

The element tin turns up in all sorts of alloys, especially bronze.

Tin is found in tin whistles, organ pipes and with lead in electrical solders.

Tin cans are - mostly - not made from tin, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 89 of Ele...

Isolating the element thulium was a truly laborious process that took many years, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 88 of Elemental.

Isolating the element thulium was a truly laborious process that took many years.

Charles James had to carry out 15,000 recrystallisations to prepare his sample when he was wanting to determine the atomic weight of thulium, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, ...

Named after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, thorium could provide a cleaner source of nuclear power in the future, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in episode 87 of Elemental.

Named after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, thorium could provide a cleaner source of nuclear power in the future.

All of its isotopes are radioactive, and it was the second element to be classified as radioactive, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckla...

Thallium is most famous for some infamous poisoned family cases & its appearance in an Agatha Christie novel solved a medical mystery, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 86 of Elemental.

Thallium is most famous for some infamous poisoned family cases, and used to be used as rat poison.

It is highly toxic because it 'looks' like potassium to mammalian bodies.

Its appearance in the Agatha Christie novel 'The Pale Horse&#x...

A discovery from the chemically prolific Swedish village of Ytterby, terbium produced the green on old TV sets & adds security to Euro notes, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 85 of Elemental.

A discovery from the chemically prolific Swedish village of Ytterby, the lanthanoid terbium produced the green on old TV sets & adds security to Euro notes, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in...

Tellurium is a metalloid often found with gold and the US town Telluride is named after it, says Prof Allan Blackman, in ep 84 of Elemental.

Tellurium was one of Mendeleev's rare mistakes on the original periodic table as he put it in the wrong place.

Tellurium compounds are most famous for their nasty and persistent smell. Just fifteen milligrams of tellurium oxide taken orally will still be detectable as 'tellurium breath...

Technetium was the first element on the periodic table to be synthesised. It is rare, radioactive and has only a few uses, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 83 of Elemental.

Dmitri Mendeleev predicted some of the properties of element 43, but it remained stubbornly undiscovered until l937.

The reason it was hard to discover is that the radioactive element doesn't really exist on Planet Earth.

Its great claim to fame is that it was t...

The metal tantalum is usually found with the element niobium, has a very high melting point but is a 'conflict mineral', says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 82 of Elemental.

Tantalum is almost always found in association with niobium, which is why tantalum is named after Tantalus, the father of Niobe.

Tantalus was condemned to eternal hunger and thirst by the Greek Gods, even when he was surrounded by fruit and water. The discoverer of ta...

Sulfur is responsible for some very bad smells, is the number one industrial chemical and is also an essential element, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 81 of Elemental.

Sulfur is associated with many bad smells, think farts and Rotorua. The smells are caused by thiols, also known as mercaptans, which are compounds with a sulfur bonded to a hydrogen. An example is the smell of H2S, or rotten egg gas, which can be fatal.

However, thiols...

Named after a Scottish town, strontium can be highly radioactive & glow-in-the-dark, but also used in toothpaste, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT, in ep 80 of Elemental.

Strontium is named after the Scottish village of Strontian and is the United Kingdom's only claim to fame on the periodic table.

It is a group 2 metal that sits between calcium and barium on the periodic table, and is best known for producing a brilliant crims...

Sodium is vital for life & usually found in combinaton with other more interesting elements, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 79 of Elemental.

Would you willingly eat the product obtained from the reaction of a metal which reacts violently with water and a poisonous gas that was used as a chemical weapon in World War One?

Well, put like that you'd probably answer 'no', but chances are that you've already eaten some ...