Wonderful chemical element-rubidium

At the beginning of the 1850 s, the German chemist Robert Bunsen (Robert Bunsen), who lived in Hamburg, invented the 1 gas-burning lamp, which is still everywhere in our chemical laboratories. He tried to put various substances into the hot flame of this lamp to see what changes they had in the flame. Change is indeed there! The flame was almost colorless, but when the sodium-containing substance was put into it, the flame turned yellow; when the potassium-containing substance was put into it, the flame turned purple again... After many experiments, Bensheng believed that he had found a 1 new method of chemical analysis. This method does not require complex test equipment, test tubes, measuring cups and reagents, but can know what kind of chemical composition the substance contains as long as the color signal emitted by the substance in a high-temperature colorless flame.

But further experiments annoyed Bensheng, for the flames of some substances were almost of the same color, and it was impossible to distinguish them with the naked eye alone.

At this time, living in the same city, Kirchhoff, who studied physics, decided to help Bensheng. He thought, since sunlight can be broken down into a spectrum of seven colors through a prism, why can't this simple piece of glass be used to distinguish the color signals emitted by those substances in the hot flame? Kirchhoff told Bensheng what he thought, and gave him the 1 instrument he had developed, the spectroscope. Periodic Table of Elements They put all kinds of substances on the flame, and called the substances into hot steam. The light emitted by this steam, after passing through the spectroscope, really decomposes into a spectrum composed of some scattered colored lines-line spectrum. There are two red lines and one purple line in the spectrum of potassium vapor. Sodium vapor has two yellow lines close to each other. The spectrum of lithium consists of a bright red line and a darker orange line. Copper vapor has several spectral lines, the brightest of these are two yellow lines and one orange line, and so on. In this way, people have found a 1 reliable method to explore and analyze the composition of substances-spectral analysis.

The sensitivity of the spectral analysis method is very high, can "detect" a few millionths of a gram or even a few billionths of a gram of any 1 of elements. The spectroscope expands people's field of vision. You place the spectroscope in the aisle of light, and the spectral lines will tell you, without error, what is the composition of the chemical elements of the substance that emits this light.

Benson has studied many substances with a spectroscope. In 1861, he found the 1 unknown element that produced the rubidium ore line in the red spectrum in the 1 mineral water and in the lepidolite ore. The newly discovered element is named after the color of its spectral lines, rubidium (in Latin, rubidium means dark red). The discovery of rubidium was the first victory in the study and analysis of the elemental composition of matter by spectroscopic analysis.

Rubidium, whose element symbol is Rb and atomic number is 37, is the 1 alkali metal element. Elemental substance is silvery white light metal, soft and waxy, and its chemical properties are more active than potassium. It is easy to release electrons under the action of light.

Rubidium reacts violently with water to generate hydrogen and rubidium hydroxide. It is easy to react with oxygen to generate complex oxides. Since the reaction with water releases a large amount of heat, the hydrogen can be burned immediately. Pure rubidium metal is typically stored in sealed glass ampoules.

Rubidium metal is very chemically active. It can ignite spontaneously in oxygen and air, and the reaction with water is particularly violent. Even at -100 ℃, the reaction can still proceed quickly, and it can cause combustion and explosion at room temperature. Rubidium works with all non-metallic elements (except nitrogen).

Like other alkali metals, rubidium reacts violently with lower alcohols. Reacts violently with halogens, oxidants and halogenated hydrocarbons. It also reacts with PTFE. There are four known oxides of rubidium: yellow 1 oxide 2 rubidium Rb2O, dark brown rubidium peroxide Rb2O2, black rubidium trioxide Rb2O3 and dark orange superoxide rubidium RbO2. Commercial rubidium oxides are generally a mixture of these four oxides. Rubidium is second only to cesium in alkalinity, and rubidium is the second strongest alkali metal. Rubidium forms double halide salts with antimony, bismuth, cadmium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, thorium and zinc. These double salts are generally insoluble in water and do not absorb moisture. Rubidium acetates, bromides, carbonates, chlorides, chromates, fluorides, formates, hydroxides, iodides, nitrates and sulfates are readily soluble rubidium compounds. These compounds generally absorb moisture. The chemistry of rubidium is essentially limited to Rb(I) ionic compounds. Although rubidium can form many chelates with ether, thioether, and amine ligands, metal-carbon bonds are essentially absent.

Rubidium is a 1 scarce strategic resource with a market price of 1.95 billion yuan/ton, which is more precious than gold. Rubidium (Rb) was discovered in 1861 and is the 1 rare dispersed alkali metal element. Because of its unique high stability, easy ionization, excellent photoelectric properties and strong chemical activity, it shows broad application prospects and market demand in the national defense industry, aerospace industry, energy industry, biomedical, food industry and other high-tech fields, which is of great strategic significance. In the list of 35 key minerals released by the United States in February 2018, rubidium is the eighth important mineral. In recent years, the market price of rubidium has increased rapidly and is more precious than gold. From 2005 to 2015, the market price of rubidium rose from 0.11 billion yuan/ton to 1.35 billion yuan/ton, and now it has reached a price of about 1.95 billion yuan/ton.

Rubidium is not as oxidizing as cesium and is not as well known as sodium and potassium. However, rubidium also has a wide range of uses, and it is also the first victory to study and analyze the composition of material elements by spectral analysis.