World bismuth

Bismuth is applied in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy as admixture for stainless steel, pig iron and non-ferrous alloys. Alloys of Bi-Pb-Sn-Cd system are known for having 50-70°C and even lower melting temperature. The world bismuth production is given in Table 4.4 [4.2, 4.3, 4.8]. 

TABLE 4.4. WORLD BISMUTH PRODUCTION (tonnes/year)... 

One should point out that bismuth content in the Earth s crust is one-fifth as high as that of lead [19], However, deposits of bismuth with high content of about 5-25% are very rare and locate in Bolivia, Tasmania, Peru and Spain. That is why 90% of world bismuth has been manufactured from the wastes of lead-refining, copper-smelting and tinning plants. 

The United States consumed 1500 metric tons of bismuth in 1988 and exported 147 t (1). The average domestic dealer price was 12.74/kg. The world mine output, excluding the United States, was estimated to be 2770 t in 1988 the world refinery production was estimated as 3510 t. Of the bismuth consumed in the United States, 679 t was used for industrial and laboratory chemicals, cosmetics (qv), and pharmaceuticals (qv) 333 t for fusible alloys 493 t for metaHurgical additives 12 t for other alloys and 15 t for miscellaneous purposes. 

When Z gets big enough, no number of neutrons is enough to stabilize the nucleus. Notice in Figure 2-20 that there are no stable nuclei above bismuth, Z — 83. Some elements with higher Z are found on Earth, notably radium (Z = 88), thorium (Z = 90), and uranium (Z = 92), but all such elements are unstable and eventually disintegrate into nuclei with Z < 83. Consequently, the set of stable nuclei, those that make up the world of normal chemistry and provide the material for all terrestrial chemical reactions, is a small subset of all possible nuclei. 

Miller A process for purifying and removing silver from gold by passing chlorine gas through the molten metal, covered with borax. The silver forms silver chloride, which floats to the top. Bismuth, antimony, and arsenic are eliminated as their volatile chlorides. Developed by F. B. Miller at the Sydney Mint in Australia in 1867 and soon in world-wide use. 

In Australia, bismuth is mined as a by-product of copper ores by Peko-Wallsend Ltd. and exported for refining. Bolivia is the only country in the world where concentrations of bismuth are high enough that it is mined for its own value. The Tasna mine in Bolivia is thus unique. This mine was shut down for most of the 1980s, however, because the free-market price for bismuth dropped to a low value in the late 1970s and remained low through the early 1980s. 

The oldest, most well-established chemical separation technique is precipitation. Because the amount of the radionuclide present may be very small, carriers are frequently used. The carrier is added in macroscopic quantities and ensures the radioactive species will be part of a kinetic and thermodynamic equilibrium system. Recovery of the carrier also serves as a measure of the yield of the separation. It is important that there is an isotopic exchange between the carrier and the radionuclide. There is the related phenomenon of co-precipitation wherein the radionuclide is incorporated into or adsorbed on the surface of a precipitate that does not involve an isotope of the radionuclide or isomorphously replaces one of the elements in the precipitate. Examples of this behavior are the sorption of radionuclides by Fe(OH)3 or the co-precipitation of the actinides with LaF3. Separation by precipitation is largely restricted to laboratory procedures and apart from the bismuth phosphate process used in World War II to purify Pu, has little commercial application. 

This discovery stimulated what can only be described as frenzied research in many laboratories throughout the world which quickly resulted in the discovery of YBa2Cu307, the so-called T23 phase, or YBCO, with a transition at a temperature as high as 93 K. There are also bismuth-based high-Tc superconductors, which are described below. 

From the late 1960s onwards, a number of research groups around the world began to investigate alternatives to pneumatic nebulization for sample introduction, in an attempt to overcome transport efficiency limitations. The most successful approaches were those which involved heating small, discrete liquid samples, and sometimes even solid samples, directly on a metal filament, boat, or cup which could be positioned reproducibly into a flame. However, since the temperature of the metal would be lower than that of the flame itself, the techniques were confined to the determination of relatively easily atomized elements such as arsenic, bismuth, cadmium, copper, mercury, lead, selenium, silver, tellurium, thallium, and zinc. 

Bismuth is recovered mainly as a by-product of processing lead and copper ores and only in Bolivia was it mined as the principal product. Table 12 shows world refinery production of bismuth . ... 

TABLE 12. World refinery production of bismuth (modified from References 74 and 103)... 

Arsenic has a long history as a poison. Its applications include (or have included) antimicrobials, herbicides, insecticides and rodenticides (and homicides). Arsenicals (as well as antimony and bismuth compounds) have been used clinically in protozoal, venereal and neoplastic diseases. In World War I, arsenicals were used as chemical warfare agents (see References 1-21 and references cited therein). 

As of 2008, the largest producers of bismuth in the world were China, Mexico, Peru, and Canada. Bismuth is produced in the United States as a by-product of lead refining. 

Merck had its beginnings in the United States in 1887 as the American marketing branch of one of the leading German producers of fine chemicals. In 1903 this subsidiary introduced the production in Rahway, New Jersey of narcotics, bismuth salts, iodine, and other fine chemicals for the American pharmaceutical industry. During World War I the company turned to the production of coal-tar-based synthetic intermediates, which it had previ-... 

The foundations of the modem science and the systematic investigation of the elements began in the Arabic world where experiments with scientific questions were well underway in the ninth-century ad. Jabir ibn Hayyan, one of the founding fathers of chemistry, was bom in Persia and a prolific scholar. He emphasized experimentation and invented a wide variety of laboratory equipment, as weU as a number of fundamental processes such as distillation and crystallization. He discovered and described many basic chemical substances - including hydrochloric and nitric acid, and the elements arsenic, antimony and bismuth - that are the basis of chemistry today. He was the first to purify and isolate sulfur and mercury as pure elements. He began to systematically describe the basic elements and provided the framework for the periodic table by distinguishing metals and nomnetals in his classification. 

Current world production of bismuth is estimated at about 5500 tons per year. The estimated world productions in 1980 and 1996 are shown in Table 1.1. The joint US Bureau of Mines/Geological Survey study in 1992 estimated the economic reserves of bismuth at 107 000 tons (48% in Asia/Australia, 37% in USA, and 15% in Europe). 

The USA and Japan together represent almost half of the world consumer demand. The details of the US and Japanese consumption of bismuth in 1996 are shown in Table 1.2. The US domestic consumption, exports and imports statistics in 1997-1998 is shown in Table 1.3. 

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