The chemical factor magnesium is classed as an alkali earth metallic. It was found in 1808 by Humphrey Davy.
Information Zone
Discovery of Magnesium
Magnesium and calcium had been as soon as considered the identical substance. In 1755 Scottish chemist Joseph Black confirmed by experiment that the 2 had been completely different. Black wrote:
“We have already shewn by experiment, that magnesia alba [magnesium carbonate] is a compound of a peculiar earth and fixed air.” (1)
Magnesium was first remoted by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808, in London, England. Davy had constructed a big battery and used it to go electrical energy by salts. In doing so, he found or remoted for the primary time a number of alkali and alkali earth metals.
In magnesium’s case, Davy’s technique was just like the one he used for barium, calcium and strontium.
Davy made a paste of moist magnesium oxide and crimson mercury oxide. (2)
He made a despair within the paste and positioned about 3.5 grams of mercury metallic there to behave because the destructive electrode. He used platinum because the optimistic electrode. Davy did the experiment beneath naphtha (a liquid hydrocarbon beneath which he had discovered he might safely retailer potassium and sodium).
When electrical energy was handed by the paste, a magnesium-mercury amalgam fashioned on the mercury electrode. (In later experiments Davy used moist magnesium sulfate as a substitute of the oxide and obtained the amalgam a lot quicker.) (2)
The mercury was then faraway from the amalgam by heating to go away magnesium metallic. (2)
In a lecture to the Royal Society in June 1808, Davy described how the magnesium he obtained was not pure due to difficulties in eradicating the mercury totally from the magnesium. He was, nonetheless, capable of observe that in air the metallic became a white powder, gaining weight because it reacted with oxygen and returned to its oxide kind. (2)
Davy thought the logical title for the brand new metallic was ‘magnesium’ however as a substitute known as it ‘magnium.’
He thought the title ‘magnium’ was, “objectionable, but magnesium has been already applied to metallic manganese…”
By 1812, Davy had modified his thoughts, following the “candid criticisms of some philosophical friends,” and the brand new metallic grew to become referred to as magnesium, whereas metallic manganese grew to become referred to as… manganese. (3)
Magnesium’s title is derived from magnesia, which Davy utilized in his experiment. Magnesia is the district of Thessaly in Greece the place magnesia alba [magnesium carbonate] was discovered.
In France, in 1830, Antoine Bussy revealed his work exhibiting how pure magnesium metallic might be obtained. Bussy had learn Friedrich Wöhler’s 1828 publication of how he had produced pure aluminum by reacting aluminum chloride with potassium. By analogy, Bussy thought he might do one thing just like produce pure magnesium from magnesium chloride; he was appropriate.
Beneath crimson warmth he reacted magnesium chloride with potassium vapor and obtained pure magnesium. He wrote, “The metal is silvery white, very brilliant, very malleable, flattens into flakes under a hammer… dilute acids attack the metal, releasing hydrogen.” (4)
Go to Chemicool’s Cool Magnesium Information Web page
Look and Traits
Dangerous results:
Magnesium powder is an explosive hazard.
The brilliant white gentle plus ultraviolet from burning magnesium could cause everlasting eye injury.
Traits:
Magnesium is a silvery-white, low density, fairly robust metallic that tarnishes in air to kind a skinny oxide coating. Magnesium and its alloys have superb corrosion resistance and good excessive temperature mechanical properties.
The metallic reacts with water to supply hydrogen gasoline.
When it burns in air, magnesium produces an excellent white gentle.
Makes use of of Magnesium
The good gentle it produces when ignited is made use of in images, flares, and pyrotechnics.
With a density of solely two-thirds that of aluminum, and simply over one-fifth that of iron, magnesium alloys are utilized in plane, automotive engine casings, and missile building.
The metallic is broadly used within the manufacturing of cellphones, laptop computer computer systems, cameras, and different digital parts.
Natural magnesium compounds (Grignard reagents) are vital within the synthesis of natural molecules.
Magnesium compounds such because the hydroxide (milk of magnesia, Mg(OH2)), sulfate (Epsom salts), chloride and citrate are used for medicinal functions.
Magnesium is the second most vital intracellular cation and is concerned in quite a lot of metabolic processes together with glucose metabolism, ion channel translocation, stimulus-contraction coupling, stimulus secretion coupling, peptide hormone receptor sign transduction. (5)
Abundance and Isotopes
Abundance earth’s crust: 2.3 % by weight, 2.0 % by moles
Abundance photo voltaic system: 700 components per million by weight, 30 components per million by moles
Price, pure: $3.7 per 100g
Price, bulk: $0.29 per 100g
Supply: Magnesium is the eighth most plentiful factor within the Earth’s crust and the sixth most plentiful metallic. Magnesium is obtained commercially by the ‘Pidgeon’ course of. This excessive temperature technique makes use of silicon as a lowering agent to extract magnesium from minerals corresponding to dolomite (MgCa(CO 3)2) or magnesite (MgCO 3) or saltwater.
Isotopes: Magnesium has 15 isotopes whose half-lives are recognized with mass ranges from 20 to 34. Naturally occurring magnesium is a mix of its three secure isotopes and they’re discovered within the percentages proven: 24Mg (79.0%), 25Mg (10.0%) and 26Mg (11.0%).
References
Cite this Web page
For on-line linking, please copy and paste one of many following:
or
To quote this web page in an instructional doc, please use the next MLA compliant quotation:
– “magnesium discoverer”