Friday, November 30, 2012

Rubidium - Element of the Week from 11/23 -11/30


            
           Rubidium is an alkali metal, which is soft and silvery-white in appearance. It was discovered in 1861 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff through flame spectroscopy (Bunsen burner anyone?) Due to the bright red spectral emission, its name comes from the Greek word "rubidius", which means dark or deepest red.
            While its identity was determined in the 1860s, prior to today's more "exact" methods and measurements, Bunsen and Kirchhoff were within 1 degree Celsius of today's accepted melting point value, and within 0.1 g/cm3 of today's accepted density value.
            When it comes to natural abundance, Rubidium ranks 23. It is found in several minerals all containing approximately 1% of rubidium. Its crustal abundance is 90 mg/kg. It is also found in seawater, though in much less concentration than potassium. Its oceanic abundance is 0.12 mg/L.
            It has one stable isotope Rb-85 and one slightly radioactive isotope Rb-87. Rb-87 has a half-life of around 49 billion years, which makes it a primordial nuclide or a naturally occurring state that has been around since before the creation of Earth.
            Some uses of Rubidium are in fireworks to give them a purple color, and many medical uses. One such medical usage is as a biomarker, since it can be taken up in place of potassium by the body, and occurs only in small amounts in biological creatures. It is also used in Biochemistry to induce cells to take up DNA. Some compounds of rubidium can be used for electrical means in thin film batteries, and also in some optical glasses.

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