Talk:Bismuth

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Article changed over to new Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements format by maveric149. Elementbox converted 12:25, 10 July 2005 by Femto (previous revision was that of 21:13, 4 July 2005).

Layout and wordwrap

There seems to be an issue with text ovrlapping and coming to close to the "bismite mineral" picture and "Recycling Header". Using Firefox 3.0.11. Not present in IE6. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.106.203.244 (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Information Sources

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Bismuth. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Bismuth Statistics and Information, from the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org), Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). Data for the table was obtained from the sources listed on the main page and Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements but was reformatted and converted into SI units.

I converted the mixture of text and prices into a Google spreadsheet with a graph: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pE93ibhhw1_grnvBTdEdbVA The graph does not show the dates. I don't know why. I don't know how you would fit it into the article, and I am not sure even where to put this note. ccp

Talk

Bismuth is a diamagnetic, it can be use to block Magnet fields. It can be used to make Power (Voltage, current).Take a magnet, Bismuth, and coil of wire. Put the Bismuth between the magnet and coil of periods. By taking a Magnet blocking the field with Bismuth and removing the Bismuth. Now move the Bismuth in and out of the center(Between the Magnet and Coil of wire). Troy Frei

Do it yourself and get back to us. It takes work to remove a diamagnetic meterial from a magnetic field, just as it does to remove a dielectric from the electric field in a capacitor. S B H arris 02:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One quick question I can't seem to find in the article. Does the dimagnatism of Bismush continue in hihg temperatres? Does it get stronger or weaker in say, bismuth vapor? Thanks, all the infromation I can find about this is inverably about superconductors. 24.137.78.34 11:18, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of etymology, the sentence

GermanWeisse Masse meaning "white mass"; later Wisuth and Bisemutum

seems (to me) to contain several errors. I have more faith in Merriam-Webster.
—Herbee 21:47, 2004 Apr 26 (UTC)

The word origin "wismuth" and Anglicized "bismuth" supposedly derived from German "Weisse Masse" is often reported, but unlikely. The more likely explanation is that it is derived from medieval German "wise muth", with the first word having exactly the same meaning as the English word "wise" (contemporary German: "weise"), and "muth" meaning mineral claim, a term that was used in German legal documents for mineral rights until the 19th century. In contemporary German, it is spelled "Mutung", if this ancient word is used at all. 24.77.9.78 (talk) 13:58, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nuclear systematics - Does the theoretical mass defect come in higher or lower than that which is empirically measured? I can provide the empirical value from Ehmann/Vance or NuDat, and it is -18.2585 MeV. Inquiring minds wish to know.. :-)

--24.80.110.173 06:35, 7 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

= imortal being

imho that is to stupid to include

I added that section to metaphorically emphasize the stability of bismuth. I don't regard it as "stupid". Pakaran (ark a pan) 16:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Poor metal vs. semi-metal?

Every reference I've read on bismuth refers to it as a semimetal (metalloid), not a "poor metal". In fact, I've never really heard of an scientific use of "poor metal" other than a casual term meaning it's a poor conductor, or not an effective engineering material.

Eric 22:06, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Disputed

The statement that bismuth is the heaviest of the heavy metals and the only non-toxic comes from [1], however I think it is misleading. For "heaviest", it certainly isn't w.r.t density, but might be w.r.t atomic number for certain definitions of heavy metal (if uranium and thorium are not classified as heavy metals). For "the only non-toxic", it is mentioned that gold is not very toxic either (e.g. in heavy metal and gold).

The page lists the crystal structure as rhombohedral, but it is monoclinic. In a rhombohedral crystal, the unit cell edges are all of equal length. In the monoclinic crystal, the unit cell edges are different lengths. This is the case with bismuth. To verify what I'm saying, go to webelements.com to check the lattice parameters of bismuth and then compare them to the information listed in the wikipedia entry for Bravais Lattices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.238.85 (talk) 16:41, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Disputed

When it says "Among the heavy metals, it is the heaviest and the only non-toxic". I think it means the "heaviest AND ALSO non-toxic" of metals.

Gold is heavy but has an atomic number of 79 and Bismuth has an atomic number of 83, which means (again...) that bismuth is the heaviest of non-toxic metals.

Stability related to shell model?

Is Bismuth's surprising radioactive stability related to it having 126 neutron, a magic number in the shell model theory of nuclei? My high school text agrees, but someone more knowledgable than the shoddy quality of my text should probably express this more coherently. -- postglock 09:37, 11 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One way to show this is true is to look at the A = 83 isobaric chain and note that Bi-209 is the only one stable against beta decay, but yes, it can be argued on nuclear-systematics grounds that the N = 126 closed shell is what gives Bismuth its stability. However, Polonium-209 is the most stable isotope of that element, and it has 84 protons and 125 neutrons. Polonium-210's half-life is cut down by two orders of magnitude (when calculated by the Geiger-Nuttall rule) because of the fact that Lead-206 is doubly-magic and in the theory of alpha decay it is easier to form the alpha particle when the nucleons to form it are already spin-paired.

Re: Re: Disputed

OK. Gold IS a toxic heavy metal. The only problem is it is hard to find and make compounds of gold that can be assimilated by the body.

The word 'heavy' in this context usually refers to the atomic number, not the density of the element. Elements like Seaborgium are referred to a 'Superheavy' It might be more meaningful to use the term 'heaviest nucleii', although polonium might be considered here as a metal which is heavier, but it it not stable so the radioactivity might kill someone before heavy metal poisoning does.

Tungsten is a heavy metal, but is also not toxic (at least not much). I don't know about the others. Most of the others are kind of rare so although they are heavy metal poisons it would be hard to encounter toxic compounds.

Nontoxic

I think what the "nontoxic" statement means to achieve is remove your intuition, in comparison to similar metals, similar applications, especially lead, which is very poisonous, and it's right next to bismuth in the periodic table. In my mind, bismuth belongs in the group of lead, antimony, selenium, tin, arsenic, mercury, etc. type of element group, in decreasing order of "similarity." Of these and most other metals, bismuth shines in the sense that pepto-bismol is a straight bismuth compound you can ingest without any fear. It's hard to think of many other non-biologically significant metal compounds that are similarly nontoxic, yet reactive with stomach acid. Sillybilly 20:00, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, bismuth can be toxic if heavily overdosed, and it's only 'relatively' nontoxic to humans, but it can be very toxic to prokaryotes, such as Helicobacter pylori bacteria that cause stomach ulcers. This is the main function of bismuth subsalicylate, the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol, and not the stomach acid reactivity that bismuth subcarbonate similar to calcium carbonate pills would have. Sillybilly 02:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How 'non-toxic' do you mean? Anything in excess cause trouble, including water and salt (sodium chloride). If bismuth is 'non-toxic', then it is more in the league with calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium ions (although sodium, potassium, or calcium metals would be extremely dangerous due to the corrosiveness of the metal hydroxides, and any significant imbalance of potassium and magnesium in the blood would be lethal).

What water-soluble or acid-soluble metallic ions (including those of weak metals), are non-toxic? I'm not referring to substances rendered inert due to insolubility (for example, barium sulfate). --66.231.41.57 04:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the discussion here is about semantics, due to the very poor phraseology of the original text. Without changing the intended meaning, I have rephrased the "hevaiest" and "non-toxic" clauses so that they should now be non-controversial. 150.203.69.27 06:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC) Dr. A. G. Christy, Dept. Earth & Marine Sciences, Australian National University[reply]

Dead link

I removed this dead link [2]. Glad I read it particularly about Pepto-Bismal.--Dakota ~ ° 00:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is in the Internet Archive, but I am not sure how much useful information it adds. Milkfish 01:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thermal Resistance

Not sure I fully understand what they're trying to say with the statement "only mercury has less thermal conductivity." Probably they mean of the heavy metals, but using Gold as per another example, it has a much lower thermal conductivity. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Etmax (talk • contribs) 22:31, June 5, 2006.

I'm not sure what you mean. Bismuth has a thermal conductivity of about 8 W/mK, while gold has a thermal conductivity of over 300 W/mK. Gold conducts heat much better than bismuth. eaolson 04:02, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, the first entry here has my adress number thing stuck on the end of it, but i didn't write it. What's the matter? 24.137.78.34 20:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I looked at the wrong history entry when I added the unsigned template. Now fixed. eaolson 20:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not a problem 24.137.78.34 00:45, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretical vs. experimental (in)stabilty

In russian (USSR) "Popular library of chemical elements" (1977) stated, that bismuth (isotope 209Bi) _is_ decaying with half-period of 2*10^18 years. Please remove that crap about 2003 and France.

Evidence (all in russian):

(1983 edition djvu hard copy) <http://www.rushim.ru/books/obzor/popular-biblioteka2.djvu>

(HTML version of 1977 edition) <http://n-t.org/ri/ps/pb083.htm>

I had a Russian look at that page and he says it's not a scientifically rigorous page, it's a reprint of a book intended for a general audience so they have no cite for where the half-life comes from. My guess is that it was a theoretical calculation reported as fact by the Soviet publisher. 142.90.99.21 23:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What i meant is that current text states, that it was stable until 2003. Theory is theory. Well educated people will not publish something _modern_ and _shiny_ in form of accepted true, unlike those who will due to their intere$T$. I beleive, that many investigations in the USSR were done not for number of publications, but for common good, so to speak. Even today many fields are secret and results are closed. Old reports may be just lost.

If somebody will rephrase that to something like "modern measurements of the half-life etc... have following results...." it will be much better and doubtless.

For person, who like to know how it was done, original article in the Nature 422 876 (2003) is the main source of information, unless you can read russian or find equivalent information (3 of <http://ufn.ioc.ac.ru/news/rus/2003/0603_r.html> :).

Precaution creep

Hi. After some reflection I changed back your most recent edit to the above, as I thought the previous version read better (listing the protective equipment in more detail). I note your qualifications from your talk page and your experience as a Wikipedian, and don't want to appear high-handed in reverting the edit. If you disagree with my reverson, I am happy to discuss. Jeendan 03:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I should have put more of my thinking on the TALK page, so here it is. As it is, this bit of article, which was supposed to be on crystals, was getting to be a collection of warnings and user instructions for amateurs. This is sort of unencyclopedic, since it's not our job to tell people about dangers of home hobbies, or give instructions on do it yourself dangerous stuff. We've had problems putting that stuff even in the "precautions" sections of element articles (which some people have argued shouldn't even BE there at ALL). Nevertheless, the precaution section has survived for particularly trecherous elements like sodium, sort of as a public service. But I'd hate to see "precaution creep" in this fashion, all over wikis, intended for people who are bound and determined to screw up with some material--- and that's what I thought I was detecting here. See if you don't agree. S B H arris 03:17, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A new wording proposed. Feel free to change it if you think it does not do the trick. Jeendan 05:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello...?

Will someone post the number of protons, electrons, and neutrons of bismuth? And also the mass number? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.218.179 (talk) .

Well, from the article, the atomic number of bismuth is 83, so it has 83 protons. The most common isotope is bismuth-209, so it has 209 - 83 = 126 neutrons. And the mass number is the same as the atomic mass, so that would be 208.98 g / mole. -- MarcoTolo 01:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh...Thanks. I just didn't understand the method, I think...Sorry. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.140.218.179 (talk) 02:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

No need to be sorry - glad I could help. In the future you might have better luck posting questions like this at the Wikipedia Reference desk. -- MarcoTolo 02:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I just thought it didn't belong there. Thanks again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.140.218.179 (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Suggested re-rating

I suggest that this article be re-rated to B-class, given its depth and style. --Der yck C. 04:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the project guidelines for Start-class articles ("The article has a good amount of content, but it is still weak in certain areas, and may lack a table. For example it may cover the uses and physical properties extensively, but be weak on actual chemistry."), I'm guessing the article is not quite a B-class yet.... -- MarcoTolo 05:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Measuring its half-life

Given that the half-life of bismuth is so long and that decay is therefore a very rare event I would like to ask how it is possible to accurately measure its half life? For example if a reasonable mass of bismuth only has one theoretical atomic decay a year there is a real statistical chance (by random variation) that none or more may occur and so one would surely need to measure over an unfeasible period of time (of unfeasible mass)? Also such a low rate would surely be masked by contamination and background radiation or re-absorption of emitted particles? Could an explanation of the method be added as a link? --ManInStone 12:37, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In point of fact you need rather sensitive alpha detectors for this. There is an article somewhere that notes they accidentally came across an alpha decay line that wasn't in the tables and concluded it was bismuth-209's natural radioactivity. 100 nuclei sounds like a lot but when you consider that Avogadro's number is 6.02 * 10^23, it's basically nothing. All the bismuth that's been around since the Earth formed is essentially still present.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_18_163/ai_101941095

--142.90.99.60 (talk) 23:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Color of Bismuth

The Crystal shown in the chembox under appearance might be "lustrous pink", but as far as I know, bismuth is usually grey. I would like to know if that crystal is pure Bi or some compound. But for all reasonable purposes, I think that the appearance of Bi is grey, or silver, or something to that effect. Ruff ^{Bark away!} 18:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the copper page, it is described as "metallic bronze". Having first hand experience with both metals, copper is a more of a pale pink that reacts within seconds with the air and turn yellow. Bismuth is just like silver but faster reacting, if bismuth is used as a plating material under vacuum (i.e. no air present) it looks just like silver & then will dull to a grey color (with air), then after a few days may develop rainbow effects that silver objects would normally take several years to develop. --- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.222.186.230 (talk) 07:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bi-210

Please add the isotope to the table. It says Bi-210m decays into Bi-210, but what is Bi-210?--Certh (talk) 10:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Toxic?

One of the references, http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/bismuth+line, implies it can be toxic. Yes, anything can be toxic in high doses, but since the main article says it's a non-toxic element shouldn't we try to include lethal or damaging dose or the specific way (or ways) this "non-toxic" element can be toxic? Khono (talk) 23:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bismuth falling in a vacuum.

In 1999, my chemistry professor told me that bismuth falls slower in a vacuum than other elements. I found this interesting and over the years have tried to find more information on this. Has anyone have any further information pro or con? 66.55.54.106 (talk) 15:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For objects of different composition to fall with different speeds in a vacuum would be very surprising, because it would be a violation of the weak equivalence principle of general relativity. In the early 1920's Charles F. Brush reported experiments showing that pendulums with bobs of bismuth had significantly shorter periods than similar pendulums of other materials, implying that a bismuth weight would fall faster in a vacuum. However these results could not be reproduced by subsequent researchers (see for example H. Potter, Physical Review, http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRev.19.187), who found on the contrary that pendulums of many different materials, including bismuth, had equal periods to within experimental error. Many of the more recent experiments have verified the weak equivalence principle to better than one part per billion, so the consensus is that the Brush results were in error.CharlesHBennett (talk) 02:54, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To cite Harry Potter for magical deceleration of bismuth is very funny. --Stone (talk) 06:25, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bismuth encephalopathy

Please include information about bismuth encephalopathy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.78.64.253 (talk) 18:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bismuth 2008-09 news

The 2007 Bismuth Minerals Yearbook chapter will be out in a few months ( today is 2/24/09). Note new 2008-09 bismuth price series, the bismuth (metal) customer-input price on http://customer-inputprices.blogspot.com Bmhtayl (talk) 22:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Global warming??!

Exactly what is meant by assigning a global warming potential to bismuth, in some weird way? The text in the section on its recyclability and sustainability mentions global warming.. but, *why*? There's no possible reason I can think of that bismuth is involved directly in global warming:

Even if recycling it takes energy, that energy could easily be provided by established non-emitting source, such as nuclear or hydroelectric power, or even one of the non-established alternative sources, like solar or wind...
Even if the recycling process directly involves carbon, the cost of bismuth and the quantities involved mean that sequestration is easily an economic option; the CO2 produced by bismuth oxide reduced by carbon is a fairly small amount that could easily be recaptured without adding significantly to the cost of the effort.

Zaphraud (talk) 16:57, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Global Warming-see Footnote

Check the study in footnote 8. I would agree that global warming as applied to bismuth is a very elastic perhaps peculiar concept. For example, do you go all the way back to mining the lead and tungsten ore, go through lead/tungsten smelting and refining, bismuth separation and refining, or begin somewhere in the middle? "lead-free" study began in the middle. Bmhtayl (talk) 21:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Radioactivity

In the opening paragraph it says that bismuth is non radioactive, then that it is radioactive. Can we clean this up? AStudent (talk) 08:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is generally considered to be the last naturally occurring stable, non-radioactive element What I now most people consider bismuth as non radiactive material.

although it is actually slightly radioactive, with an extremely long half-life also right. With a half-life of 10¹⁸ years you have a real problem to measure radiation. With age of the universe in the range of 10⁹ years it is very close to stable.--Stone (talk) 08:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems rather bizarre to bring up its radioactivity as if this contradicts its being the heaviest stable element: it is my understanding that ALL elements are unstable, but some have extremely long half lives. At the heat death of the universe all elements have completely decayed. For now I'm going to remove the 'however...' bit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.49.172 (talk) 20:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Diodes

minor problem, but the Diode link under the application section links to a Canadian band's page 03:50, 9 September 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.179.173.61 (talk)

Thanks. Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 22:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

File:Bi-crystal.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Bi-crystal.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on September 28, 2010. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2010-09-28. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! howcheng {chat} 17:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Picture of the day

A bismuth crystal covered with an iridescent oxide surface. Bismuth is a post-transition metal with the atomic number 83. It is generally considered to be the last naturally occurring stable, non-radioactive element on the periodic table, although it is actually slightly radioactive. Bismuth compounds are used in cosmetics, medicines, and in medical procedures. As the toxicity of lead has become more apparent in recent years, alloy uses for bismuth metal as a replacement for lead have become an increasing part of bismuth's commercial importance.Photo: Alchemist-hp

Archive – More featured pictures...

Edits to "chemical characteristics"

I added chemical reactions with the metal. I am used to working on simple Wikipedia so please reformat them as needed. Thanks, --Chemicalinterest (talk) 18:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"heaviest"

In the article it says "Bismuth has classically been considered to be the heaviest naturally occurring stable element". I think that this sentence should be reworded to make it clear in what sense "heaviest" is used. 86.181.169.245 (talk) 14:03, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the words "in terms of atomic mass" to that sentence. --24.80.104.17 (talk) 04:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recycling

The section on recycling uses "possibly" and "probably" in a manner that doesn't strike me as very encyclopedic. I wouldn't know how to begin to fix it so I thought I'd post here and see if anyone else would. Cyrissia (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BXR

The salts of bismuth are sometimes fed to people before abdominal X-ray, to produce a higher contrast, more detailed photo. 82.131.210.163 (talk) 18:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]