Beryllium

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Beryllium is an alkaline earth metal with an atomic weight of 9.012182. It has a melting point of 2349 °F, and a boiling point of 4476 °F. Beryllium is steel grey in color, resists oxidation at normal temperatures, is permeable to x-ray radiation, and is 1/3 more elastic than steel. Current uses of beryllium include: as an allow with nickel to create tools that do not spark, as an alloy with copper to create parts for computers and gyroscopes, in ceramics, and as a component in allow mixtures for high performance aircraft.

Beryllium metal is isolated on a commercial scale and so it is hardly ever isolated using laboratory metals. There are three frequent methods of isolating beryllium.

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The first method of beryllium isolation involves extracting beryllium from the ore beryl which has the chemical formula of Be3Al2(SiO3)6. Beryl is heated with sodium hexaflourosilicate at a temperature of 1292 °F to produce beryllium fluoride. The beryllium fluoride is water soluble and so the next step involves isolating beryllium out through a precipitation process. The beryllium fluoride is mixed with water to create a solution, and by increasing the pH of the solution to 12 the beryllium can be precipitated out as beryllium hydroxide. The second step of beryllium isolation involves using electrolysis of molten beryllium chloride that has been mixed with sodium chloride; the sodium chloride addition is necessary for electrolysis because beryllium does not conduct electricity well. The third isolation beryllium procedure involves heating beryllium fluoride with magnesium metal to 2372 °F; the end products of this isolation procedure yield magnesium fluoride and pure beryllium. The isolations procedures used depend on the tools and material at hand, and how much of a beryllium yield is needed.