Description
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Barium is an alkaline earth metal that is a silvery white solid in its natural state. It is a soft metal that is very reactive in air. Barium has an atomic weight of 137.327, a melting point of 1341 °F, and a boiling point of 3447 °F. Some common uses of barium include: as a compound for drilling mud and oil wells, as a sulfate in x-ray imaging, as an alloy with nickel in spark plug wire, as a component in glassmaking processes, as a carbonate in brick making, and in the production of rubber.
Isolation
Barium does not occur in nature in its free form, and isolation processes are used to extract barium for commercial purposes.
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Barium occurs in nature in mineral form. The most common minerals which contain barium are barite, a barium sulfate, and witherite which contains barium carbonate. The extraction process of barium is complicated because barium is so reactive with air; isolated barium oxidizes quickly in the air and so its pure form is not used very often. For commercial barium uses, barium is isolated from the mineral barite. The isolation process uses electrolysis of melted barium chloride to yield pure barium. Barium chloride is formed from the barium sulfate. Molten barium chloride serves as the cathode and the chlorine serves as the anode; electrolysis of these elements causes separation. Another isolation process reduced barium oxide by reacting it with aluminum on a 6 to 2 basis. The result from this reduction process is pure barium and a barium aluminum oxide compound. Pure barium has to be stored carefully to prevent it from being oxidized by air.