Light bulbs are a big upgrade from fires and candles. Every year, homes in informal settlements burn down in Africa because of fires used for heating and lighting. So electrical light bulbs with filaments brought about a ...
Optics & Photonics
Nov 8, 2021
11
316
Sunscreen that includes zinc oxide, a common ingredient, loses much of its effectiveness and becomes toxic after two hours of exposure to ultraviolet radiation, according to a collaboration that included Oregon State University ...
Materials Science
Oct 14, 2021
3
4088
The Miller-Urey experiment, conducted by chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in 1953, is the classic experiment on the origin of life. It established that the early Earth atmosphere, as they pictured it, was capable of ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 4, 2009
36
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- University of California, San Diego electrical engineers are building a forest of tiny nanowire trees in order to cleanly capture solar energy without using fossil fuels and harvest it for hydrogen fuel generation. ...
Nanophysics
Mar 7, 2012
4
1
Bruce White worked with semiconductors and transistors at Motorola and Texas Instruments. But when he left industry for a position on Binghamton University's faculty, the materials scientist decided to take his research in ...
Nanomaterials
Mar 25, 2014
7
9
A new composition of germanosilicate glass created by adding zinc oxide has properties good for lens applications, according to Penn State researchers. This marks the discovery of a novel glass family.
Materials Science
Apr 3, 2019
0
160
Mention the word "crystals" and few people think of nuclear fuel. Unless you are Eric Burgett. The Idaho State University professor is on a quest to create pure, single crystals of uranium and uranium oxide so researchers ...
Energy & Green Tech
Jun 25, 2013
0
1
(Phys.org) —In the world of organic solar cells, polymer-based devices may currently be at the top, but other organic materials such as "small molecules" also prove to be promising. Although small-molecule organic solar ...
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new breed of rechargeable zinc-air batteries is soon to be available, and may replace lithium-ion batteries in cell phones, laptops and other consumer items. Lithium-ion batteries store only a third of ...
Modern humans left Africa some 60,000 years ago in the event known as "Out-of-Africa." In Asia, they coincided with the Denisovans, and that encounter may have led to confrontations and collaborations, but also various crossbreeding. ...
Evolution
Oct 30, 2023
1
366
Zinc (pronounced /ˈzɪŋk/, from German: Zink and also known as spelter) is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a first-row transition metal in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is chemically similar to magnesium because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2. Zinc is the 24th most abundant element in the Earth's crust and has five stable isotopes. The most exploited zinc ore is sphalerite, or zinc sulfide; the largest exploitable deposits are found in Australia, Canada and the United States. Zinc production includes froth flotation of the ore, roasting and final extraction using electricity.
Brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc, has been used since at least the 10th century BC. Impure zinc metal was not produced in large scale until the 13th century in India, while the metal was unknown to Europe until the end of the 16th century. Alchemists burned zinc in air to form what they called "philosopher's wool" or "white snow." The element was probably named by the alchemist Paracelsus after the German word Zinke. German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf is normally given credit for discovering pure metallic zinc in a 1746 experiment. Work by Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta uncovered the electrochemical properties of zinc by 1800. Corrosion-resistant zinc plating of steel is the major application for zinc. Other applications are in batteries and alloys, such as brass. A variety of zinc compounds are commonly used, such as zinc chloride (in deodorants), zinc pyrithione (anti-dandruff shampoos), zinc sulfide (in luminescent paints), and zinc methyl or zinc diethyl in the organic laboratory.
Zinc is an essential mineral of "exceptional biologic and public health importance". Zinc deficiency affects about 2 billion people in the developing world and is associated with many diseases. In children it causes growth retardation, delayed sexual maturation, infection susceptibility, and diarrhea, contributing to the death of about 800,000 children worldwide per year. Enzymes with a zinc atom in the reactive center are widespread in biochemistry, such as alcohol dehydrogenase in humans. Consumption of excess zinc can cause ataxia, lethargy and copper deficiency.
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