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Zinc, purity 99.995 %, left: a crystaline fragment of an ingot, right: sublimed-dendritic, and a 1 cm3 zinc cube for comparison.
Image: Alchemist-hp (Free Art License).
In this video, one chemist commits what surely be "chemistry sacrilege" by mentioning that "zinc is boring". This comment sets off a firestorm of protest:
Zinc (spelter, a name that may also refer to zinc alloys), is the first group 12 transition metal. It has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is another one of those shiny silver-grey tranisition metals although unlike most of the others we've met, zinc is fairly hard until heated.
When you watch this video, you will notice that the chemists begin by gathering together several fire extinguishers ....
Even though the Professor pointed out the importance of zinc to living beings, I thought I'd provide a wee bit more detail. Zinc is an essential mineral of "exceptional biologic and public health importance" [PMID: 17374687] -- hardly boring, especially if you are one of the two billion people or so in the developing world who don't get enough zinc in their diet. Zinc deficiency leads to the death of about 800,000 children worldwide every year, but only after these children suffer from growth retardation, increased susceptibility to infections, diarrhea and delayed sexual maturation.
But people in the developed world who enjoy alcohol (most of us) will especially appreciate zinc because it is the reason that the all-important liver enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, functions so well to detoxify your favourite beverage. Zinc is also the reactive center for a number of other critically important enzymes.
Of course, as with any essential trace element, over-consumption is also bad: too much zinc causes a lack of coordination of muscle movements, lethargy and even copper deficiency.
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Video journalist Brady Haran is the man with the camera and the University of Nottingham is the place with the scientists. You can follow Brady on twitter @periodicvideos and the University of Nottingham on twitter @UniNottingham
You've already met these elements:
Copper: Cu, atomic number 29
Nickel: Ni, atomic number 28
Cobalt: Co, atomic number 27
Iron: Fe, atomic number 26
Manganese: Mn, atomic number 25
Chromium: Cr, atomic number 24
Vanadium: V, atomic number 23
Titanium: Ti, atomic number 22
Scandium: Sc, atomic number 21
Calcium: Ca, atomic number 20
Potassium: K, atomic number 19
Argon: Ar, atomic number 18
Chlorine: Cl, atomic number 17
Sulfur: S, atomic number 16
Phosphorus: P, atomic number 15
Silicon: Si, atomic number 14
Aluminium: Al, atomic number 13
Magnesium: Mg, atomic number 12
Sodium: Na, atomic number 11
Neon: Ne, atomic number 10
Fluorine: F, atomic number 9
Oxygen: O, atomic number 8
Nitrogen: N, atomic number 7
Carbon: C, atomic number 6
Boron: B, atomic number 5
Beryllium: Be, atomic number 4
Lithium: Li, atomic number 3
Helium: He, atomic number 2
Hydrogen: H, atomic number 1
Here's a wonderful interactive Periodic Table of the Elements that is just really really fun to play with!
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