The result of a geophysical survey in a remote part of eastern Idaho could have economic impacts on the Gem State by identifying locations to extract cobalt and other minerals.
Earth Sciences
Sep 23, 2021
0
14
As a rule, most catalyst materials deteriorate during repeated catalytic cycles—they age. But there are also compounds that increase their performance over the course of catalysis. One example is the mineral erythrite, ...
Materials Science
Aug 09, 2021
0
64
Catalysts are crucial to making industrial processes viable. However, many of the non-precious metal catalysts used for synthesis have low activity, are difficult to handle, and/or require harsh reaction conditions. Osaka ...
Materials Science
Apr 08, 2021
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28
A sustainable, powerful micro-supercapacitor may be on the horizon, thanks to an international collaboration of researchers from Penn State and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. Until now, the ...
Materials Science
Mar 16, 2021
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1601
When Michigan State University's Gemma Reguera first proposed her new research project to the National Science Foundation, one grant reviewer responded that the idea was not "environmentally relevant."
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 08, 2021
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2238
A multi-institutional research team led by materials scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has designed a highly active and durable catalyst that doesn't rely on costly platinum to spur the necessary ...
Materials Science
Dec 15, 2020
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46
Real-time measurements captured by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory provide missing insight into chemical separations to recover cobalt, a critical raw material used to make batteries ...
Materials Science
Aug 04, 2020
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148
A research team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and Carleton University in Ottawa has manufactured a novel, highly versatile cobalt compound. The molecules of the compound are stable, extremely compact and have a low ...
Materials Science
Jun 09, 2020
0
17
Scientists have been interested in superconductors—materials that transmit electricity without losing energy—for a long time because of their potential for advancing sustainable energy production. However, major advances ...
Superconductivity
Mar 03, 2020
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1359
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) demonstrate the first visible-light photoelectrochemical system for water splitting using TiO2 enhanced with an earth-abundant material—cobalt. The proposed approach ...
Materials Science
Feb 18, 2020
2
64
Cobalt ( /ˈkoʊbɒlt/ or /ˈkoʊbɔːlt/) is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.
Cobalt-based blue pigments have been used since ancient times for jewelry and paints, and to impart a distinctive blue tint to glass, but the color was later thought by alchemists to be due to the known metal bismuth. Miners had long used the name kobold ore (German for goblin ore) for some of the blue-pigment producing minerals; they were named because they were poor in known metals and gave poisonous arsenic-containing fumes upon smelting. In 1735, such ores were found to be reducible to a new metal (the first discovered since ancient times), and this was ultimately named for the kobold.
Nowadays, some cobalt is produced specifically from various metallic-lustered ores, for example cobaltite (CoAsS), but the main source of the element is as a by-product of copper and nickel mining. The copper belt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia yields most of the cobalt metal mined worldwide.
Cobalt is used in the preparation of magnetic, wear-resistant and high-strength alloys. Cobalt silicate and cobalt(II) aluminate (CoAl2O4, cobalt blue) give a distinctive deep blue color to glass, smalt, ceramics, inks, paints and varnishes. Cobalt occurs naturally as only one stable isotope, cobalt-59. Cobalt-60 is a commercially important radioisotope, used as a radioactive tracer and in the production of gamma rays.
Cobalt is the active center of coenzymes called cobalamin or vitamin B12, and is an essential trace element for all animals. Cobalt is also an active nutrient for bacteria, algae and fungi.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
