The new week starts with Fearless taking a look at a new
element, this one being number 22 in the periodic table…
Titanium
So there he was.
William Gregor, taking a break from tending his flock as a clergyman in
Cornwall, took advantage of a nice day in 1791 to indulge his hobby of
geology. He was walking along a stream
in a nearby parish and came upon a deposit of black sand. And (you can’t really make this up), he had a
magnet and thought, “what the heck?” and tested the sand with it. Lo and behold, the sand was attracted by the
magnet. He took some back to his
church/geology lab and produced from it two different oxides. One was iron oxide, which he knew about. The other was a white metallic oxide with
which he was not familiar. That was as far
as Gregor would get though.
Meanwhile, over in Austria, Franz-Joseph Müller von
Reichenstein, was discovering the same thing at about the same time. He did not know what he had, either. It was up to a Prussian chemist -- Martin
Heinrich Klaproth – to discover four years later just what the other two
missed. What he had was a new element
that he named. And he was not about to
mess around. He named it for the Greek
gods that were descendants of the earth and sky, immortals of unimaginable
strength and endurance. He named it
“Titanium” for the Titans.
Titanium is well-named.
It is universal, being present in meteorites, the sun, and in lunar
rocks, in addition to its presence on earth.
It is a low density metal, but one of high strength. It is extremely resistant to corrosion. It is resistant to acids, chlorine gas and
chloride solutions. It is resistant to high temperatures.
It does not have a natural role in human physiology, but its
qualities make titanium uniquely suited to high-performance applications in
manufacturing: propeller shafts and boat hulls (it was used in the manufacture
of submarines, for example), airframes and engines, missiles, and
spacecraft. It has medical applications,
such as in prostheses and orthopedic implants, and dental instruments and
implants. It is used in automotive
production where light-weight, high-strength materials are important. It shows up in sporting equipment (even
hockey, in face masks). It even has
promise as a critical element in long-term nuclear waste storage.
Titanium…a durable, high-strength metal used in
high-performance, critical applications that is resistant to stress,
temperature, corrosion. Sounds like a
defenseman who is durable, eats up critical minutes, performs well in stressful
situations (like tournaments or playoffs), who can be relied upon in a variety
of situations.
Titanium…the “John Carlson” of elements of the periodic
table.
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