Barium Atomic number 56 Stuff that sticks Commentary

Uppsala, London—Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Humphry Davy elements

Barium

• Heating witherite produced baryta,
• as Lavoisier called it,
• which is barium hydroxide, also called barote, or baryte,
• all from the Greek word meaning heavy.
• Carl Wilhelm Scheele recognized barium
• was a new heavy “earth”
• from testing small crystals of barium oxide
• he found in pyrolusite, a manganese mineral.
• Scheele wasn’t able to reduce
• his barium oxide to pure barium.
• Thirty-four years later, Humphry Davy
• isolated it using electrolysis
• and named the new metal barium.

Atomic number 56

• Witherite is barium carbonate.
• Baryte is barium sulfate.
• Wedgwood’s Jasperware contains barium sulfate.
• Benitoite (barium titanium silicate) fluoresces blue,
• the state gem of California.
• Whereas farmers used witherite as a rat poison,
• baryte isn’t toxic because it’s insoluble.
• Barium in a vacuum tube ties up trace gases.
• Barium sulfate makes a good white pigment for paints.
• Oil drillers use baryte in their drilling-fluid to help prevent blowouts
• because it’s insoluable and heavy.
• Steel, cast iron, alloys with aluminum, zinc, lead, and tin,
• green fireworks, and high-temperature superconductors
• contain barium.
• Minerals frankdicksonite, zhangpeishanite, witherite,
• alforsite, baryte, radiobarite, barioperovskite, hashemite,
• muirite, fresnoite, babefphite, nitrobarite, kampfite,
• sanbornite, norsethite, gamagarite, curetonite, verplanckite,
• tokyoite, garrelsite-V and -VIII, alsonite, barytocalcide,
• paralstonite, mackelveyite-(Y) where the Y stands for yttrium,
• traskite, krasnovite, kuannersuite-(Ce), fencooperite,
• kukharenkoite-(Ce), zhonghuacerite-(Ce), clinobarylite,
• barylite, krauskopfite, usovite, and morelandite
• contain more than forty percent barium.
• Pure barium doesn’t exist in nature
• because it readily bonds with nearly everything
• but unlike nitrogen doesn’t bond with itself.

Stuff that sticks

• An electron
• with a negative charge
• sticks to its nucleus
• albeit loosely,
• according to Coulomb’s law,
• because the nucleus
• is postively charged.
• Given that, I suppose,
• you might explain
• why barium, with a valence
• of positive two, sticks
• to sulfate, with a valence
• of negative two.
• After that,
• things get a little sticky.
• Opposites attract
• but they also clash.