Scientists at Radboud University discovered a new mechanism for magnetic storage of information in the smallest unit of matter: a single atom. While the proof of principle was demonstrated at very low temperatures, this mechanism ...
Quantum Physics
Sep 25, 2018
1
799
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have confirmed the particle-by-particle mechanism by which lithium ions move in and out of electrodes made of lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, or LFP), findings that could lead ...
Nanophysics
Jun 11, 2013
0
0
In recent years, the demand for cobalt, a crucial component of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for smartphones and electric cars, has been on the increase. Around 60 percent of the world's cobalt supply comes from the ...
Environment
Sep 21, 2018
0
683
An accidental discovery in a laboratory at Oregon State University has apparently solved a quest that over thousands of years has absorbed the energies of ancient Egyptians, the Han dynasty in China, Mayan cultures and more ...
Biochemistry
Nov 16, 2009
6
0
Lithium-air batteries are considered highly promising technologies for electric cars and portable electronic devices because of their potential for delivering a high energy output in proportion to their weight. But such batteries ...
Energy & Green Tech
Jul 25, 2016
11
3116
Magnetic devices like hard drives, magnetic random access memories (MRAMs), molecular magnets, and quantum computers depend on the manipulation of magnetic properties. In an atom, magnetism arises from the spin and orbital ...
General Physics
May 8, 2014
6
1
Electric vehicle revolution is well under way. Norway ambitiously heads toward having all new cars sold as zero-emission by 2025. China continues to be one of the major drivers of EV boom. The US market experiences strong ...
Energy & Green Tech
Mar 20, 2019
124
43
(Phys.org)—Many hiking trails feature a "devil's staircase"—a set of steps that are often steep and difficult to climb. The devil's staircase is also the name of a mathematical function whose graph exhibits a jagged step-like ...
A new type of air-fuelled battery could give up to ten times the energy storage of designs currently available.
Energy & Green Tech
May 18, 2009
16
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- For millions of years, green plants have employed photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version ...
Other
Mar 11, 2009
2
0
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
