Indium ore

Source: element present in trace amounts in the main cassiterite and sphalerite, treated with a chemical or electrolytic method to obtain sphalerite system.

Element use: soft, can be drawn into filaments. Gold pure form metal indium little commercial value, primarily for the manufacture of the alloy to lower the melting point of the metal. Indium silver alloy or indium lead alloy has higher thermal conductivity than silver or lead. It can be used as a raw material for low-melting alloys, bearing alloys, semiconductors, and electric light sources. It is mainly used for the coating of lead-coated silver bearings for aircraft. Indium foil is often inserted into a nuclear reactor to control the progress of the nuclear reaction. Indium foil reacts with neutrons in the reactor to exhibit radioactivity, which exhibits a rate of radioactivity that can be used as a valuable parameter for measurement and reaction.

Element content in the sun (ppm): 0.004

Element content in seawater (ppm): Pacific surface 0.0000001

Crust content (ppm): 0.049

Find:

In 1863, Germany's Reich and Richter studied the sphalerite by spectroscopy and found a new element, namely indium.

Thallium was discovered and after the acquisition, Freiburg, Germany (Freiberg) School of Mines professor of physics Reich due to the interest in some properties of thallium, hope enough metal experimental study. He began looking for this metal in the zinc mine produced in Himmelsfüst in Freiburg in 1863. Such ore is the principal component arsenic-containing pyrite, sphalerite, galena Hui, silica, manganese, copper and small amounts of tin, cadmium and the like. Reich believes that it may also contain cockroaches. Although the experiment took a lot of time, he did not get the desired elements. But he got a grassy yellow precipitate that was unknown. He believes it is a new element of sulfide.

Only the analysis of the spectrum is used to prove this hypothesis. However, Reich was color blind and had to ask his assistant HT Richter to perform a spectral analysis experiment. Richter in the first experiment is successful, he found an indigo open wire, location and cesium two bright blue lines do not coincide in the beam splitter, a word on the "Indigo" (indikon) from Greek Name it indium (In). Two scientists co-signed to discover the report of indium. The separation of the metal indium is done by the two of them. They first separated the chlorides and hydroxides of indium and reduced them to metal indium on charcoal using a blowpipe. They were exhibited at the French Academy of Sciences in 1867.

The distribution of indium in the earth's crust is relatively small and scattered. Its rich ore has not been discovered, it exists as an impurity in zinc and some other metal mines, so it is included in rare metals.