Boron - A METALLOID WHICH PROTECTS THE NUCLEAR REACTOR!

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Warning! Do not try to repeat the experiments shown in this video!
Hi everyone! Today I would like to tell you about such an unusual element as boron. In the periodic table boron is located on the very top of the group 3 right above aluminium. The history of using boron dates back from ancient China where people used a naturally occurring compound borax, which is sodium tetraborate, for glazing glass. Later on, Europeans began to use it too and they extracted pure boron from it. There were at least a few scientists who discovered how to do that. Pure boron comes in the form of such black particles. It is obtained through decomposition of boron volatile compounds in helium steam. Now you can see so-called crystallic boron which has a very high melting point, which has low chemical activity level and which is also the hardest element to break. Besides crystalline form, boron can also be amorphous that is have different inner structures. Such different forms of the same element are called allotropes. There have been more than 10 allotropes of boron. It can be noticed that by boron’s diverse allotropes that is its different structures, it resembles carbon. From a chemical point of view boron is poorly studied because it is very difficult to obtain its pure form, however, I will try to show you something interesting. One would think that since boron is placed between metals and nonmetals, it should have properties of both classes. To start with, I heated up small bits of crystallic boron with a gas burner and watched the process run. Basically nothing special happened just as was expected. Boron doesn’t oxidize well in the air. In order to make boron lose its mere three electrones, I set it on fire along with a powerful oxidizer potassium chlorate. In the end I made boron lose its electrones, after that it partly turned into boron oxide, which melted right away. Now you have seen metallic properties of boron or rather how it loses electrons.

Видео Boron - A METALLOID WHICH PROTECTS THE NUCLEAR REACTOR! канала Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments!