Strontium Atomic number 38 Minerals Commentary

London—Adair Crawford, William Cruikshank, Humphry Davy elements

Strontium

• Between 1787 and 1790 the Scottish surgeon
• and chemist William Cruikshank and the Irish
• physician and chemist Adair Crawford
• found that the Scottish mineral
• from lead mines near the Scottish village Strontian
• contained a new earth, distinct from barium.
• *
• In 1791 the German physicans Friedrich Gabriel Sulzer
• and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published a paper
• that reported their experiments with the mineral.
• They named the mineral strontianite.
• *
• Between 1791 and 1793, Thomas Charles Hope,
• Scottish physician and chemist in Edinburgh,
• repeated Cruikshank and Crawford’s experiments
• and named the element strontites.
• *
• Meanwhile, in 1793 and 1794, the German chemist
• Martin Heinrich Klaproth and the Irish scientist
• Richard Kirwan independently experimented with the mineral
• and prepared various compounds of the element.
• *
• In 1808, Humphry Davy isolated the element
• “by the electrolysis of a mixture containing
• strontium chloride and mercuric oxide.”
• Davy named the element strontium
• following the naming principle of other
• alkaline earths—calcium, barium, magnium.*

Atomic number 38

• Strontium oxide and barium oxide
• in the glass of cathode-ray tubes
• absorbs X-rays.
• *
• The proportions of isotopes of strontium
• absorbed like calcium in bones
• identifies geographical origins.
• *
• In fireworks and flares, strontium salts
• such as strontium carbonate and strontium chloride
• burn deep red.
• *
• Radioactive strontium-89
• in the treatment of bone cancer
• reduces metastatic bone cancer.
• *
• Radioactive strontium-90
• in radioisotope thermoelectric generators
• is a power source.
• *
• Strontium chloride in toothpaste
• fills holes in dentin
• to make teeth less sensitive.

Minerals

• The chemistry of the earth
• creates compounds strange
• and beautiful, crystaline,
• transparent, translucent,
• and luminescent in veins,
• geodes, and concretions.
• Many attractions, many
• combinations. It took
• many years to unravel
• the minerals to find the
• elements that never
• appear alone in nature.