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Germanium is not found as the free element in nature. Germanium is found in germanite, argyrodite, and some zinc ores. It is also present in coal and its presence in coal insures reserves for many years.
How is germanium naturally found?
Germanium is primarily mined with zinc ore as well as with argyrodite, germanite, and coal according to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
How is germanium mined?
Today, germanium is primarily obtained from the smelting of zinc ores and from the byproducts of burning certain types of coal. Both germanium and germanium oxide (GeO) are transparent to infrared radiation and are used in infrared optical instruments and infrared detectors.
What is germanium found in?
1886.
Does germanium occur freely in nature?
Germanium is widely distributed in nature but is too reactive to occur free. Primary minerals include argyrodite (from which it was first isolated), germanite, renierite, and canfieldite, all of them rare; only germanite and renierite have been used as commercial sources for the element.
Is germanium toxic to humans?
Germanium is not an essential element. Its acute toxicity is low. However, at least 31 reported human cases linked prolonged intake of germanium products with renal failure and even death. Signs of kidney dysfunction, kidney tubular degeneration, and germanium accumulation were observed.
Does the human body use germanium?
Germanium is a chemical element. People sometimes use it as medicine. Despite serious safety concerns, germanium is used for cancer, heart disease, hepatitis, glaucoma, and other conditions. But there is no good scientific evidence to support these or other uses.
Does germanium have health benefits?
Despite serious safety concerns, germanium is used for heart and blood vessel conditions, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease; for eye conditions, including glaucoma and cataracts; and for liver conditions, including hepatitis and cirrhosis.
Which is the rarest element on the Earth?
A team of researchers using the ISOLDE nuclear-physics facility at CERN has measured for the first time the so-called electron affinity of the chemical element astatine, the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth.
Is germanium man made or natural?
Organic germanium is a man-made blend of germanium, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Common names include germanium-132 (Ge-132) and germanium sesquioxide.
What are 6 interesting facts about germanium?
Interesting Facts about Germanium Scientists are studying germanium for use in chemotherapy to help treat cancer. Dmitri Mendeleev first named the element “ekasilicon”, but it was later renamed by Winkler. Some compounds that include germanium are useful in killing bacteria while not harming animals.
Is germanium magnetic?
Abstract. The magnetic susceptibility of highly doped germanium has been measured between 300°K and 1.3°K. The contribution of the carriers to the susceptibility has been derived from the data.
Does germanium float in water?
Germanium is stable in air and water, and is unaffected by alkalis and acids, except nitric acid. Germanium is an important semiconductor, mainly used in transistors and integrated circuits. They are often made from germanium to which small amounts of arsenic, gallium, or other metals. Germanium forms many compounds.
Is Iodine a metal?
Iodine is a nonmetallic, nearly black solid at room temperature and has a glittering crystalline appearance. The molecular lattice contains discrete diatomic molecules, which are also present in the molten and the gaseous states. Above 700 °C (1,300 °F), dissociation into iodine atoms becomes appreciable.
What is the color of germanium?
A silvery-white semi-metal. It is brittle. Germanium is a semiconductor. The pure element was commonly doped with arsenic, gallium or other elements and used as a transistor in thousands of electronic applications.
What is similar to germanium?
Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors silicon and tin. Pure germanium is a semiconductor with an appearance similar to elemental silicon.
Is germanium safe to handle?
Route of Entry: Skin Contact Skin Absorption Eye Contact Inhalation Ingestion Germanium metal is relatively non-toxic by all routes of exposure, particularly in massive forms.
Is germanium a rare earth metal?
Rare earth elements are also expected to play a big part in the future. Cerium, the most common, is similar in abundance to copper and more abundant than lead, tin, cadmium, boron, tantalum, germanium and numerous other commonly used elements. Even so, rare earth elements are in short supply.
Is germanium radioactive?
Germanium 76 is slightly radioactive and is the least common. Germanium 74 is the most common isotope having the greatest natural abundance of the five. Under the condition of being bombarded with alpha particles, Germanium 72 generates stable Se 77.
Who named germanium?
In 1886, Clemens Winkler discovered a rare mineral called argyrodite which contained silver, sulphur and an unknown element, which Winkler named germanium after his home country. 3.
What are the advantages of germanium?
Advantages of Germanium Detectors Germanium is preferred due to its atomic number being much higher than silicon and which increases the probability of gamma ray interaction. Germanium has lower average energy necessary to create an electron-hole pair, which is 3.6 eV for silicon and 2.9 eV for germanium.
What foods are high in germanium?
Germanium is a naturally occurring element. Trace amounts can be found in foods such as shiitake mushrooms, garlic, tuna, and tomato juice.
Which element is most costly?
As of 2020, the most expensive non-synthetic element by both mass and volume is rhodium. It is followed by caesium, iridium and palladium by mass and iridium, gold and platinum by volume. Carbon in the form of diamond can be more expensive than rhodium.Prices of chemical elements. Symbol H Name Hydrogen Price USD/L 0.000125 Year 2012.
What elements do not exist on Earth?
Technetium. The first element that was synthesized, rather than being discovered in nature, was technetium in 1937. This discovery filled a gap in the periodic table, and the fact that no stable isotopes of technetium exist explains its natural absence on Earth (and the gap).
