This week's element is gadolinium.
Gadolinium is a lanathide. Its atomic number is 64 and its atomic weight is 157.3. Its melting point is 1312 degrees Celsius (that's 2394 degrees Fahrenheit or 1585 kelvins), and its boiling point is 3273 degrees Celsius (that's 5923 degrees Fahrenheits or 3546 kelvins).
Above is a picture of the electron configuration. Gadolinium, like all lanathides, goofs around with its electrons and hides them. The electron configuration should be like 2, 8, 18, 18, 18 with an element that has 64 electrons, but gadolinium has it like, 2, 8, 18, 25, 9, 2. The lanathides all goof it with their electrons but it at least has 64 electrons to neutralize the positive protons.
About 440 tons of gadolinium is dug up in a year, but all that gets used for just one thing. Gadolinium is really good at absorbing neutrons, so gadolinium is used when neutrons are used. If a neutron was to hit you then, you would be radioactive, with a half-life of 15 hours (a half-life is how long it takes for half the atoms to decompose, in the case of humans you'd mostly likely die). Gadolinium absorbs the neutrons so you don't get hit by a neutron in the lab. Don't worry there were no nuclear reactors before the discovery of Gadolinium.
Good thing it is found naturally occurring in Scandinavia and Sri Lanka - because now we can study neutrons.
Oh this sounds so confusing but I'm glad there are people like you who know what they are talking about because otherwise innocent people in labs may be getting hurt.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the info!
P.S. I didn't realize electrons goof off - I thought that was only children
I had a dream I was driving to the store when a neutron just pulled right out of a gas station and almost hit me. It could have been a bad accident - I could have been seriously irradiated. But then I got a gadolinium lining for the windshield and door and everyone thought that would be a good precaution in the case of other bad neutron drivers.
ReplyDeleteThe dream didn't make sense to me at the time, but maybe it is, in fact, grounded in science. What do you think, Thinker?
Nice work James; this is one i forgot or maybe never learned.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me if the discussion we had with Elder Scott at half time at one of the U games when he talked about atomic insulation.
Good work guy! Opa