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Magnesium

 Magnesium 

Symbol: Mg 

Atomic Number: 12

 Atomic Weight: 24.305 

Classification: Alkaline earth metal

 Phase at Room Temperature: Solid 

Density: 1.738 grams per cm cubed 

Melting Point: 650°C, 1202°F 

Boiling Point: 1091°C, 1994°F 

Discovered by: Joseph Black in 1755.

 Isolated by Sir Humphry Davy in 1808. 

Magnesium is an alkaline earth metal and is the second element located in the second row of the periodic table. It is the eighth most abundant element on Earth. Magnesium atoms have 12 electrons and 12 protons. There are two valence electrons in the outer shell. 

Characteristics and Properties

 In standard conditions magnesium is a light metal with a silvery-white color. When exposed to air, magnesium will tarnish and become protected by a thin layer of oxide. When coming into contact with water, magnesium will react and produce hydrogen gas. If submerged in water, you will see gas bubbles start to form. Magnesium burns with a very bright white light. At one time magnesium powder was used to produce a bright flash for photography. 

Where is magnesium found on Earth?

 Magnesium is fairly abundant on Earth in compounds and is found in over 60 different minerals in the Earth's crust. Some of the most important minerals include dolomite, magnesite, talc, and carnallite. The compound magnesium oxide (MgO) is the second most abundant compound in the Earth's crust making up around 35% of the crust by weight. A significant amount of Magnesium is also found dissolved in ocean water. In ocean water it takes the form of the cation Mg2+. A lot of commercial magnesium used in the United States comes from a process using electrolysis to extract it from sea water. 

How is magnesium used today? 

One of the main uses of magnesium metal is in metal alloys. This is because it is both strong and light. It is often mixed with aluminum, zinc, manganese, silicon, and copper to make strong and light alloys for use as automobile parts, aircraft components, and missiles. Magnesium metal is also used in electronic components. Its light weight and good electrical properties make it a good element for use in cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, and other handheld electronic components. Another application of magnesium is in various compounds. Some compounds are used as medicines such as magnesium hydroxide which used to help indigestion (Milk of Magnesia) and magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) which is used in baths to soothe sore muscles. The human body needs magnesium for good health. It is used to make proteins, strong bones, and to regulate the body's temperature. 

How was it discovered? 

Scottish chemist Joseph Black first demonstrated in 1755 that the substance magnesia alba was a compound of different elements, one of them being magnesium. The element was first isolated by English chemist Sir Humphry Davy in 1808. Where did magnesium get its name? 

Magnesium gets its name from the district of Magnesia in Greece where the compound magnesium carbonate was first found. 

Isotopes

 Magnesium has three stable isotopes including magnesium-24, magnesium-25, and magnesium-26.

 Interesting Facts about Magnesium

 For many years magnesium was thought to be the same element as calcium. 

A magnesium fire is very difficult to put out as it can burn in nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water.

 It is used in flares and fireworks because of its bright white light when it burns.

 If you pour water on a magnesium fire, it will only make the fire worse.

 Magnesium is sometimes used to help shorten the length of migraine headaches.

Famous Chemists

 Famous Chemists

 Scientists who specialize in the area of chemistry are called chemists. There have been many famous chemists throughout history who have made discoveries and breakthroughs that have changed the world. Here are just a few of them: 

Amedeo Avogadro (1776 - 1856) 

Amedeo Avogadro was an Italian scientist who came up with Avogadro's law which states that equal volumes of all gases contain the same number of molecules when under the same conditions of pressure and temperature. The Avogadro constant was named after him. 

Jons Jacob Berzelius (1779 - 1848) 

Jons Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist who is most famous for helping to develop the notation for writing chemical formulas. He also played a role in discovering and isolating many elements including silicon, thorium, cerium, and selenium. Many chemical terms are credited to Berzelius such as "allotrope" and "catalysis." He is called the father of Swedish chemistry. 

Robert Boyle (1627 - 1691) 

Robert Boyle is often considered the first modern chemist and one of the founders of chemical science. He also pioneered the scientific method. He developed Boyle's Law which states that, under a closed system with constant pressure, the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely proportional. 

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

 Marie Cure was a Polish chemist who coined the term radioactivity. She also discovered the elements polonium and radium. She was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and won the award twice, once for physics in 1903 and again for chemistry in 1911. The unit for measuring radioactivity, the Curie, is named after her and her husband Pierre. Go here to learn more about Marie Curie. 

John Dalton (1766 - 1844) 

John Dalton was an English chemist who helped to develop the atomic theory about atoms and elements. In 1803 he presented the first list of atomic weights for a number of substances. Dalton is also known for his work researching color blindness. 

Sir Humphry Davy (1778 - 1829)

 Sir Humphry Davy is best known for using electrolysis to isolate and discover many elements. He is credited with isolating or discovering sodium, calcium, boron, barium, magnesium, iodine, chlorine, and potassium. He also invented a safety lamp for miners called the Davy lamp. 

Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958) 

Rosalind Franklin was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the discovery of the DNA double helix. Her X-ray diffraction image of DNA played an important role in its discovery. She also performed important research into the polio and TMV viruses. 

Antoine Lavoisier (1743 - 1794) 

Antoine Lavoisier was a French chemist who is sometimes referred to as the "father of modern chemistry". He developed the "law of conservation of mass" which states that for any closed system, the mass of the system must remain constant over time. He also proved that sulfur was an element and named the elements oxygen and hydrogen. 

Dmitri Mendeleyev (1834 - 1907) 

Dmitri Mendeleyev was a Russian chemist who came up with the first periodic table of the elements which he published in 1865. He was able to predict the discovery of many more elements using the table. 

Alfred Nobel (1833 - 1896)

 Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and inventor who invented dynamite. He was a prolific inventor and held 350 patents. He is perhaps most famous for starting the Nobel Prize. The element nobelium is named after Alfred Noble.

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Electron

 

Electron (noun, “Ee-LEK-trahn”) 

This is one of the three types of particles that make up an atom. The other two are protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons form the center, or nucleus, of an atom. Electrons exist in a surrounding cloud. They swarm around the center of the atom. That’s because electrons have negative electric charge. That makes them attracted to the positively charged protons in the nucleus. Normally, atoms have the same number of electrons as protons. So the atoms are electrically neutral.

Unlike protons and neutrons, electrons don’t contain smaller particles. That is, they are fundamental particles. Each electron is extremely small. Its mass is only about 1/1,800 the mass of a proton or neutron. Still, electrons play an important role in how atoms behave. Atoms of different elements hold their electrons in different arrangements around the nucleus. That arrangement gives each element its distinct properties. For instance, it determines how well an element conducts electricity. It also determines the temperature at which the element boils. And, that arrangement governs how likely atoms are to share electrons with each other. When atoms share electrons, they link together and form molecules.

Power words

atom: The basic unit of a chemical element. Atoms are made up of a dense nucleus that contains positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The nucleus is orbited by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.

cloud: A plume of molecules or particles, such as water droplets, that move under the action of an outside force, such as wind, radiation or water currents. 

electric charge: The physical property responsible for electric force; it can be negative or positive.

electron: A negatively charged particle, usually found orbiting the outer regions of an atom; also, the carrier of electricity within solids.

fundamental: Something that is basic or serves as the foundation for another thing or idea.

ion: (adj. ionized) An atom or molecule with an electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons. An ionized gas, or plasma, is where all of the electrons have been separated from their parent atoms.

link: A connection between two people or things.

mass: A number that shows how much an object resists speeding up and slowing down — basically a measure of how much matter that object is made from.

matter: Something that occupies space and has mass. Anything on Earth with matter will have a property described as "weight."

molecule: An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O2), but water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H2O).

neutron: A subatomic particle carrying no electric charge that is one of the basic pieces of matter. Neutrons belong to the family of particles known as hadrons.

nucleus: Plural is nuclei. (in physics) The central core of an atom, containing most of its mass.

particle: A minute amount of something.

plasma: (in chemistry and physics) A gaseous state of matter in which electrons separate from the atom. A plasma includes both positively and negatively charged particles.

proton: A subatomic particle that is one of the basic building blocks of the atoms that make up matter. Protons belong to the family of particles known as hadrons.

 

Chemists win Nobel Prize for faster, cleaner way of making molecules

Making molecules is hard work. Atoms must be bonded together in specific arrangements through a series of chemical reactions. Those reactions often are slow and far from straightforward. They also can waste resources. The 2021 Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to two scientists who developed a tool some 20 years ago that revolutionized how chemists create new molecules. Their process is not only faster but also friendlier to the environment.

“This is a fitting recognition of very important work,” says H.N. Cheng. He’s president of the American Chemical Society, based in Washington, D.C. “We can think of chemists as magicians having magic wands in the lab,” Cheng says. “We wave the wand and a reaction goes on.” These Nobel laureates gave chemists “a new wand,” that’s drastically more efficient and less wasteful, he says.

That wand is a new way to speed the reactions that build specific molecules. It’s a process known as asymmetric organocatalysis (AY-sih-MEH-trik Or-gan-oh-kah-TAL-ih-sis). This year’s winners came up with the idea for it independently. One of the chemists, Benjamin List, works at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research. It’s in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. The other is David MacMillan. He works at Princeton University in New Jersey.

List’s and MacMillan’s work prompted others to seek out more organic catalysts and to study how they might be used. These catalysts tend to be small carbon-and-hydrogen molecules which might also include oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and/or phosphorus.

Catalysis is a big deal. Roughly one-third of the world’s collective income depends on it, notes Peter Somfai. He’s a chemist at Lund University in Sweden and another member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. At an October 6 news conference announcing the new winners, he noted “We now have a new powerful tool available for making organic molecules.” He said it’s one that can be drastically more efficient and “greener” than previous methods.

And because this process eliminates use of toxic chemicals, it’s also a far more environmentally friendly process.

If building new molecules is like playing chess, asymmetric organocatalysis has “completely changed the game,” Somfai said. “It’s like adding a new chess piece that can move in different ways.”

For their achievements, List and MacMillan will each get a medal and share 10 million Swedish kroner (more than $1.1 million).