Curated category
Dietary minerals
- ChromiumOn the 26th of July 1761, Johann Gottlob Lehmann found an orange-red mineral in the Beryozovskoye mines in the Ural Mountains.
- NickelA silvery-white metal with a slight golden tinge, nickel stands as one of only four elements that remain ferromagnetic at room temperature.
- MolybdenumThe name molybdenum comes from the Ancient Greek word meaning lead. For centuries, miners confused molybdenite with graphite and galena.
- ZincZinc carries the symbol Zn and holds atomic number 30 on the periodic table. It sits as the first element in group 12, also known as IIB.
- PotassiumIn 1807, Humphry Davy isolated a new metal from potash using a newly invented voltaic pile. He derived the element by electrolysis of molten caustic potash.
- ChlorideA chloride ion measures 181 picometers in diameter. A neutral chlorine atom measures only 99 picometers. This size difference exists because the anion holds…
- ManganeseManganese carries the atomic number 25 and exists as a hard, brittle, silvery metal. Its most common form is the stable isotope known as 55Mn.
- CobaltIn 1735, Swedish chemist Georg Brandt stood before a furnace in Riddarhyttan and proved that a dark powder was not bismuth.
- SeleniumIn 1817, Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Johan Gottlieb Gahn stood before a red solid precipitate in the lead chambers of their chemistry plant near Gripsholm…
- VanadiumIn 1801, a Spanish-Mexican mineralogist named Andrés Manuel del Río extracted compounds from a sample of Mexican brown lead ore.
- IronIron sits in the periodic table as element 26, symbol Fe, a metal of the first transition series and group 8. By mass it is the most common element on the…
- CalciumCalcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It stands as an alkaline earth metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when…
- MagnesiumAging stars forge magnesium by adding three helium nuclei to a carbon nucleus. When these massive stars explode as supernovas, they eject the element into…