Metalloid, 4.24

The element is a gray-white metalloid. In its pure state, the element is crystalline and brittle, retaining its luster in air at room temperature. It is a very important semiconductor material. Zone-refining techniques have led to production of crystalline germanium for semiconductor use with an impurity of only one part in lOio. 

Metals (mam group) Metals (transition) Metals (inner transition) Metalloids... 

Metallocomplexes Metalloenzymes Metalloid peroxides Metalloimmunoassays Metallomesogens... 

Microbial leaching of metals from ores is a promising adjunct to more aggressive metal recovery technologies (77), but is generally achieved by oxidative processes that generate very acidic waters. It seems unlikely that similar approaches will be of much value in removing contaminant metals and metalloids from soils. 

In the past, removing metal and metalloid contaminants from soil has been impossible, and site clean-up has meant excavation and disposal in a secure landfill. An exciting new approach to this problem is phytoextraction, where plants are used to extract contaminants from the soil and harvested. Immobilization and Toxicity-Minimization. 

Arsenic is another element with different bioavailabiUty in its different redox states. Arsenic is not known to be an essential nutrient for eukaryotes, but arsenate (As(V)) and arsenite (As(III)) are toxic, with the latter being rather more so, at least to mammals. Nevertheless, some microorganisms grow at the expense of reducing arsenate to arsenite (81), while others are able to reduce these species to more reduced forms. In this case it is known that the element can be immobilized as an insoluble polymetallic sulfide by sulfate reducing bacteria, presumably adventitiously due to the production of hydrogen sulfide (82). Indeed many contaminant metal and metalloid ions can be immobilized as metal sulfides by sulfate reducing bacteria. 

Germanium [7440-56-4] Ge, at. no. 32, having electronic configuration [Ar] is a semiconducting metalloid element found in Group 14 (IVA),... 

Metallic Glasses. Under highly speciali2ed conditions, the crystalline stmcture of some metals and alloys can be suppressed and they form glasses. These amorphous metals can be made from transition-metal alloys, eg, nickel—2irconium, or transition or noble metals ia combination with metalloid elements, eg, alloys of palladium and siUcon or alloys of iron, phosphoms, and carbon. 

Ion implantation (qv) has a large (10 K/s) effective quench rate (64). This surface treatment technique allows a wide variety of atomic species to be introduced into the surface. Sputtering and evaporation methods are other very slow approaches to making amorphous films, atom by atom. The processes involve deposition of a vapor onto a cold substrate. The buildup rate (20 p.m/h) is also sensitive to deposition conditions, including the presence of impurity atoms which can faciUtate the formation of an amorphous stmcture. An approach used for metal—metalloid amorphous alloys is chemical deposition and electro deposition. 

B. Venugopal and T. D. Luckey, Metal Toxicity in Mammals Chemical Toxicity of Metals and Metalloids, Vol. 2, Plenum Press, New York, 1978. 

Indium also combines with nonmetaUic elements and with metalloids such as N, P, Sb, As, Te, and Se. Many of the latter compounds ate semiconducting as ate the oxide and sulfide. Indium antimonide [1312-41 -0], InSb indium arsenide [1303-11-3], In As and indium phosphide [22398-80-7], InP, ate the principal semiconducting compounds. These ate all prepared by direct combination of the highly purified elements at elevated temperature under controlled conditions. 

Berzehus (19) further appHed and amplified the nomenclature introduced by Guyton de Morveau and Lavoisier. It was he who divided the elements into metalloids (nonmetals) and metals according to their electrochemical character, and the compounds of oxygen with positive elements (metals) into suboxides, oxides, and peroxides. His division of the acids according to degree of oxidation has been Httie altered. He introduced the terms anhydride and amphoteric and designated the chlorides in a manner similar to that used for the oxides. 

Dialkyl peroxides have the stmctural formula R—OO—R/ where R and R are the same or different primary, secondary, or tertiary alkyl, cycloalkyl, and aralkyl hydrocarbon or hetero-substituted hydrocarbon radicals. Organomineral peroxides have the formulas R Q(OOR) and R QOOQR, where at least one of the peroxygens is bonded directly to the organo-substituted metal or metalloid, Q. Dialkyl peroxides include cyclic and bicycflc peroxides where the R and R groups are linked, eg, endoperoxides and derivatives of 1,2-dioxane. Also included are polymeric peroxides, which usually are called poly(alkylene peroxides) or alkylene—oxygen copolymers, and poly(organomineral peroxides) (44), where Q = As or Sb. 

Metalloid peroxides behave as covalent organic compounds and most ate insensitive to friction and impact but can decompose violentiy if heated rapidly. Most soHd metalloid peroxides have weU-defined melting points and the mote stable Hquid members can be distilled (Table 3). Some... 

Phosphides. Compounds of phosphoms containing the more electropositive elements are generally called phosphides. A large number of binary phosphides as well as many ternary mixed-metal phosphides, metal phosphide nitrides, etc, are known. Some binary phosphides, such as those of nickel, exhibit a variety of stoichiometries (Ni P, Ni P2, Nq2P5, Ni2P, Ni P, NiP, NiP2, NiP ), whereas others, such as aluminum, form only one (AlP). Metalloids such as B and Si also form phosphides. 

Phosphides of the less electropositive metals and the metalloids may be considered more as metal—phosphoms alloys. These are thermally stable... 

Metalliding. MetaUiding, a General Electric Company process (9), is a high temperature electrolytic technique in which an anode and a cathode are suspended in a molten fluoride salt bath. As a direct current is passed from the anode to the cathode, the anode material diffuses into the surface of the cathode, which produces a uniform, pore-free alloy rather than the typical plate usually associated with electrolytic processes. The process is called metalliding because it encompasses the interaction, mostly in the soHd state, of many metals and metalloids ranging from beryUium to uranium. It is operated at 500—1200°C in an inert atmosphere and a metal vessel the coulombic yields are usually quantitative, and processing times are short controUed... 

Of the halogens, only fluorine attacks siUca readily, forming SiF and O2. A number of halogen compounds of the nonmetals and metalloids react more or less readily with siUca, forming volatile siUcon halogen compounds (Table 1). The formation of SiCl by direct chlorination of mixtures of siUca and carbon is of some technical importance. 

Metals and metalloids that form alkyl compounds, eg, methylmercury and methylarsenic acid, tributjltin, deserve special concern because these compounds are volatile and accumulate in cells they are poisonous to the central nervous system of higher organisms. Because methylmercury or other metal alkyls may be produced at a rate faster than it is degraded by other organisms, it may accumulate in higher organisms such as fish. Hg species are also reduced to elementary Hg which is soluble in water but lost by volatilization to the atmosphere (40). 

Antimony [7440-36-0J, Sb, belongs to Group 15 (VA) of the periodic table which also includes the elements arsenic and bismuth. It is in the second long period of the table between tin and tellurium. Antimony, which may exhibit a valence of +5, +3, 0, or —3 (see Antimony compounds), is classified as a nonmetal or metalloid, although it has metallic characteristics in the trivalent state. There are two stable antimony isotopes that ate both abundant and have masses of 121 (57.25%) and 123 (42.75%). 

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