Curated category
Transition metals
- 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.
- ZirconiumIn 1789, Martin Klaproth analyzed a jargoon stone from the island of Ceylon and identified a new element within it. He named this substance Zirkonerde…
- CadmiumFriedrich Stromeyer isolated a new element in 1817 while examining zinc carbonate samples sold to pharmacies in Germany.
- TitaniumIn 1791, a clergyman named William Gregor examined black sand by a stream in Cornwall, Great Britain. He noticed the sand was attracted to a magnet and…
- NiobiumIn 1801, English chemist Charles Hatchett examined a mineral sample sent from Connecticut to England. He identified a new element within the ore and named it…
- PlatinumThe element platinum carries the symbol Pt and holds atomic number 78 in the periodic table. It exists as six naturally occurring isotopes that define its…
- 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.
- Mercury (element)A heavy, silvery-white metal flows freely at room temperature. Mercury remains liquid until the temperature drops to minus 38.83 degrees Celsius.
- CobaltIn 1735, Swedish chemist Georg Brandt stood before a furnace in Riddarhyttan and proved that a dark powder was not bismuth.
- RutheniumIn 1844, Karl Ernst Claus worked inside a laboratory at Kazan State University to isolate six grams of a new metal from crude platinum residues.
- ScandiumIn 1879, Swedish chemist Lars Fredrik Nilson examined minerals from Scandinavia under a spectroscope. He saw faint lines of light that did not belong to any…
- VanadiumIn 1801, a Spanish-Mexican mineralogist named Andrés Manuel del Río extracted compounds from a sample of Mexican brown lead ore.
- YttriumIn 1787, a part-time chemist named Carl Axel Arrhenius found a heavy black rock in an old quarry near the Swedish village of Ytterby.
- 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…
- SilverA single electron in the 5s subshell defines silver's unique behavior. This configuration, written as [Kr]4d105s1, places it among group 11 elements…
- PalladiumIn July 1802, English chemist William Hyde Wollaston noted the discovery of a new noble metal in his lab book. He named it palladium in August of that same…
- RhodiumIn 1803, William Hyde Wollaston isolated a new element from crude platinum ore. He dissolved the material in aqua regia and neutralized the acid with sodium…
- TantalumIn 1802, Swedish chemist Anders Ekeberg examined two mineral samples from Sweden and Finland. He identified a new element within these rocks that defied the…
- HafniumIn 1923, two Danish scientists named Dirk Coster and Georg von Hevesy stood in a laboratory in Copenhagen. They held samples of zircon ore from Norway that…
- IridiumIn 1803, British chemist Smithson Tennant examined the dark residue left behind after dissolving platinum in aqua regia.
- GoldGold carries the chemical symbol Au, from the Latin aurum, and the atomic number 79. It is one of the least reactive elements known, sitting second from the…