Potassium fundamental properties

Yokagawa Electric Works has developed a thermometer based on the nuclear quadmpole resonance of potassium chlorate, usable over the range from —184 to 125°C. This thermometer makes use of the fundamental properties of the absorption frequency of the Cl nucleus, and its caUbration is itself a constant of nature. 

By 1946, the Navy had contracts with the Mine Safety Appliances Company and with Babcock Wilcox to investigate the fundamental properties and heat transfer capabilities of sodium-potassium, a potential nuclear coolant because of its excellent heat transfer characteristics and its low probability of absorbing neutrons. At this same time, a group of Naval officers were assigned to Oak Ridge National Lab to leam about the nuclear process. This group was led by, then Captain, Hyman Rickover. 

The catalytic properties of a surface are determined by its composition and structure on the atomic scale. Hence, it is not sufficient to know that a surface consists of a metal and a promoter, say iron and potassium, but it is essential to know the exact structure of the iron surface, including defects, steps, etc., as well as the exact locations of the promoter atoms. Thus, from a fundamental point of view, the ultimate goal of catalyst characterization should be to look at the surface atom by atom, and under reaction conditions. The well-defined surfaces of single crystals offer the best likelihood of atom-by-atom characterization, although occasionally atomic scale information can be obtained from real catalysts under in situ conditions as well, as the examples in Chapter 9 show. 

Fundamental atomic and physical properties of the alkali metals are given in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The elements are characterized by having electron configurations each with a single s orbital electron outside a noble gas core (see Table 1). Sodium and cesium are mononucUdic so that their relative atomic masses are known extremely accurately in effect, the same can be written for potassium and rubidium since their isotopes (of which there are three and two, respectively) have... 

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