High purity antimony

High purity antimony 99,99x%

High purity antimony

 

For thousands of years, humans have used antimony in many and often radically different ways. Already at 3100 v. It was made from the mineral stibnite (antimony trisulfide) cabbage, which favored pitch-black eye make-up by the ancient Egyptians, and a bright yellow pigment of antimony trioxide and lead was used in glassware and paints. To the 14. In the century BC, a possibly apocryphal legend was born, as the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar slowly went mad because he was exposed to the painted walls of his palace. But this pigment, which eventually became known as the "Naples Yellow", reached the 18. Century the height of its popularity. The writings of the Greek philosopher Pliny d. Ä. from the first century AD contain an indication of the medical use of stibnite, from which the element lead (with falsely identified antimony) could be obtained by heating. The first authors who described a means for the isolation of metallic antimony were the Italian metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio in the year 1540 u. Z. and Georgius Agricola in the year 1556; The French chemist Nicolas Lémery was the first to examine the element and its compounds and published its results in the year 1707.

Antimony oxides

The medieval alchemists recognized antimony as a "profane element" associated with femininity and gave the element its own symbol (of which a version continues to symbolize the woman). Antimony compounds have been used medicinally since the ancient Greeks prescribed certain powders to treat skin diseases. However, they were in the years following the death of the Swiss-German alchemist and physicist Paracelsus in the 16. Century as a medicine, so-called "antimony drugs", more popular. In particular, Paracelsus strongly favored the use of antimony agents as a laxative; His therapies were adopted by many in Europe over the next two centuries, notably in the form of emetics and laxatives, the remarkable effectiveness of which was largely due to their toxicity. Although arsenic is far more deadly, antimony poisoning has similar symptoms, and almost all forms can have profound toxic effects over time, including liver damage or cancer. Elemental antimony is more toxic than its salts, and compounds containing antimony in its trivalent oxidation state are generally ten times more toxic than those containing pentavalent antimony. Stibin (SbH3) and Stibnite (Sb2S3) are extremely toxic antimony compounds. Exposure to more than 50 mg / m3 is considered an imminent threat to life and health.

Antimony Ingot 16 Kg

Like other elements, including boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, and tellurium, antimony is classified as a metalloid that has properties intermediate between metals and nonmetals. Although its chemical structure resembles that of real metals, it is less thermally and electrically conductive and has the unusual property of having lower electrical conductivity than solid as a liquid. As with phosphorus and arsenic, there are several allotrope forms of antimony: a stable form, which is a silver-white metal, and three metastable forms: black, yellow, and explosive. Elemental antimony is acid resistant and stable in the air, although it is flammable when heated. It is one of five elements with the unusual property of expanding in volume upon solidification (silicon, germanium, gallium and bismuth are the other four). When molten antimony is allowed to cool, its surface receives a thin crystalline film with a characteristic crystalline fern or star pattern.

Worldwide antimony production

In the medical field, there are still some niche applications for antimony-based compounds. Antimony potassium tartrate or potassium antimony (III) tartrate, better known as tartar emetic, is slowly being withdrawn, but compounds such as meglumine antimonite, sodium stibogluconate, and lithium antimony thiomalate have been used to treat difficult to treat parasitic diseases such as skin diseases fight leishmaniasis. However, slow recognition of the risks associated with the element has resulted in a general shift of applications towards mainly industrial and high technology applications. Antimony oxides and sodium antimonite are widely used as flame retardants in plastics, textiles, leather, and PVC because in a fire, unstable compounds are released that rapidly combine with atmospheric oxygen to choke the flames. Flame retardants are one of the most important industrial applications for antimony. In addition, the security matches contain a combination of antimony trisulfide and an oxidizing agent such as potassium chlorate with red phosphor tips, which must be beaten on the respective matchbox surface for firing. Various antimony compounds are used as components of pigments, mordants, pyrotechnics, fining agents for removing gas bubbles in glass, and in the production of high quality transparent glass used in computer monitors and television screens. In laboratory chemistry, fluorantimonic acid is obtained by reacting antimony pentafluoride with hydrogen. Fluoride is the strongest known superacid.

Recent antimony applications have focused on advanced semiconductor technologies. Particularly important are the antimony compounds with indium, gallium, germanium and tellurium, which produce compounds such as InSb, Ge3Sb3, GaSb and Sb2Te3. These semiconductive compounds are used as components and substrates for the high-tech electrical materials in laser diodes, integrated circuits, infrared detectors, Hall-effect devices, and memory storage devices for data storage. In addition, it has been suggested that antimony semiconductors are critically important for the development of the next generation of metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and tunnel field effect transistors (TFETs) that could supply fast and efficient computers for use in sensors and microelectronics. High purity antimony (99,999 +%) serves as an n-type dopant in silicon wafers, and indium tin oxide (ITO) nanoparticles doped with varying concentrations of antimony have been shown to improve laser reflectance performance. Sever-antimony compounds function as topological insulators, hybrid materials that are electrical insulators in their interior but are conductors on their surface. Silver antimony telluride crystals have been used to develop modeling tools for the development of new thermoelectric devices. and various antimony-based materials such as copper antimonide and monodisperse antimony nanocrystals have been studied as highly efficient electrode and electrolyte materials in next-generation batteries.

Antimony derived its element symbol Sb from stibium, the Latin name for stibnite. The origin of the name “antimony” is less clear. Suggestions include Latin antimonium, which appears for the first time in a Latin translation of Ceber's work, the Arabic term Mesdemet, and the Greek words anti and monos, which mean “not alone,” as the element occurs mainly in compound form or with others heavier metals. The most common mineral springs are the aforementioned stibnite (also known as antimony gaze) found in hydrothermally formed veins, valentinite (antimony trioxide, a by-product of the decomposition of stibnite) and tetrahedrite. However, the element also occurs in over a hundred different minerals: cervantite or kermesite, senarmontite, nadorite and more. Antimony is mainly extracted from stibnite in the production of silver, gold and copper and can also be recovered from the recycling of lead-acid batteries.

See also antimony as an industrial metal -> Antimony, Strategic Metals

Price for Antimony Ingots 99,99%

Prices for antimony ingot 99,99% -> prices for special metals

Price for Antimony Powder 99,999%

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