Category Archives: Periodic Blackwork

Extracting minerals from deep underground can be a risky business even now. Imagine the scene several hundred years ago with just a flame for light, the likelihood of encountering pockets of toxic or flammable gas, and significant risk of tunnel collapse . Small wonder that miners in these times believed their tunnels to be inhabitedContinue reading “Minecraft”

Zinc is a familiar element, used to galvanise iron to prevent rusting. But unlike iron, its widespread use is a relatively modern phenomenon because of the difficulty in extracting it from its ore. Zinc has a low boiling point and so at the temperatures used to smelt iron, zinc escapes as a gas. The technologyContinue reading “Zinc”

When a metal salt is burned, a distinctive coloured flame is seen – a property that is exploited in fireworks. If the light of the flame is viewed through a prism, it is separated out into its component colours and a pattern of different coloured lines is seen. Each element gives its own unique setContinue reading “Shoots and leaves”

Copernicium, element 112, is another of the synthetic elements, created only in laboratories and in vanishingly small amounts. One atom was made in 1996, another in 2000 and then two in 2004. Each existed only for a matter of seconds. The team at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, whoContinue reading “Heliocentricity”

The patterns I have chosen for boron and aluminium allow me to introduce you to one of my favourite books. From Atoms to Patterns by Lesley Jackson concerns the Festival Pattern Group, a project instigated by Cambridge crystallographer Dr Helen Megaw for the Festival of Britain in 1951. She brought together British crystallographers and industrialContinue reading “Patterns in crystals”

I have previously posted fluorine and chlorine, the two elements at the top of Group VII – the halogens – and astatine near the bottom. Today the two in between: bromine and iodine. These patterns result from their physical properties and give me the rare opportunity to incorporate some organic chemistry. Similarly to fluorine andContinue reading “Properties of halogens”

One for the toxicologists and one for the immunologists today: polonium and astatine – the two elements I have struggled with most so far to find something I could work into a design. Both are radioactive – a property that can be harnessed for good or for harm. Astatine (from the Greek astatos meaning unstable)Continue reading “For better, for worse”

Following on from radon and argon, two more elements in Group 18: neon and xenon, both of which find use in bright and showy lighting. We are all familiar with the bright “neon” lights used in advertising displays and in signage such as exit arrows. Neon lends itself for this purpose as it emits aContinue reading “Light fantastic”

Today, two elements in the last group of the Periodic Table, Group 18: radon and argon. Radon is found towards the bottom of the group; it is a heavy element that is unstable and therefore radioactive. It has a half-life of only 3.5 days so doesn’t hang around for long, but is continually generated fromContinue reading “House and home”