Wonderful Life with the Elements

067

THE POWER SOURCE OF

THE MOBILE AGE

DISCOVERY YEAR : 1817

MELTING POINT

BOILING POINT

DENSITY

The red in

fireworks

Beautiful

lithium colors

Burns with

a bright red

color

Alkali metal

Solid

Industrial

uses

Battery

Champion

Lithium, the lightest metal, was also born at

the time of the Big Bang, so hydrogen, helium,

and lithium are actually triplets. But there

was so little lithium at the time, it couldn’t

do much. Today, however, it is an essential

component in both lithium ion batteries and

mobile devices. It’s light, powerful, and easy

to recharge, and it doesn’t really deteriorate.

It can also be found in seawater, so we won’t

run out anytime soon.

(0°C)

068

It’s the elite metal with skills galore: It

weighs two-thirds what aluminum does, it

resists heat with a melting point of 1278°C,

and it can create springs that can withstand

over 20 billion contractions. Yet it still leads

a tragic life due to the fact that its parti-

cles form a deadly poison. Since it’s hard to

forge anything without first powdering the

materials, it has not been adopted in mass

production.

SUPER TALENTED!

ELITE AND LEGENDARY!

DISCOVERY YEAR: 1797

MELTING POINT

BOILING POINT

DENSITY

(PRESSURIZED)

Strong

Light

nya

Hard

Other

Poison

Solid

Springs that

can withstand

over 20 billion

contractions.

King of

springs

Detrimental

to the

lungs

HELPING OUR DAILY LIVES

IN SO MANY WAYS

DISCOVERY YEAR: 1892

MELTING POINT

BOILING POINT

DENSITY

(TYPE B)

069

Disinfecting

properties

Stab

The boron

family

Solid

Heat-resistant

glass

Fake

snow in

movies

Dehydrates

cockroaches

using

poisonous

bait

We mostly use boron in compounds. For

example, the technical term for the heat-

resistant glass Pyrex is borosilicate glass,

created by adding boron oxide to keep the

glass from swelling and shrinking. Harder

diamonds can be created by combining boron

with carbon. Finding new boron combina-

tions is a great way for a chemist to show

off; two Nobel prizes have been awarded for

boron compound research.

070

Carbon is the building block of all life.

One could argue that the food chain

should instead be called something like

“the carbon tug-of-war.” Carbo hydrates,

proteins, and all the other nutrients

that we require are made up of carbon

compounds. The same is also true of

our cells, DNA, and the plants we eat.

(Plants create their carbohydrates from

carbon dioxide through a process called

PART OF EVERY

LIVING THING

DISCOVERY YEAR: ANCIENT

Activated

charcoal

Water

purification

Air

purification

Multipurpose

Appears

in many

different

forms

The

carbon

family

Solid

A friend

from

ancient

times

Charcoal

In

calligraphy

ink

071

MELTING POINT

BOILING POINT

DENSITY

(DIAMOND)

(SUBLIMATION)

(DIAMOND)

There are over 10,000,000

different naturally occurring

carbon compounds.

Its properties

change

depending on

how it binds

together.

Pencil

graphite

All living

things

Diamonds

Carbon

nanotubes

Fullerene,

used in tennis

rackets and

golfclubs

photosynthesis.) The fourth most abun-

dant element in the universe, carbon

comes in many forms, from the graphite

in our pencils to diamonds. The forms are

so different that it’s hard to believe that

they’re made from the same element.

It appears today in oil, plastics, clothes,

and medicines. It has also drawn a lot of

recent attention with the advent of car-

bon nanotube research.