1. Antimony is a lead-antimony alloy plate used in lead-acid batteries. Antimony is alloyed with lead and tin to improve the performance of welding materials, bullets and bearings. Antimony compounds are important additives for a wide range of chlorine- and bromine-containing flame retardants. Antimony is also widely used in emerging microelectronics technologies, such as AMD graphics card manufacturing.
2. Bismuth is mainly used to make fusible alloys, with a melting point ranging from 47 to 262°C. The most commonly used alloys are alloys composed of bismuth and lead, tin, antimony, indium and other metals, which are used in fire-fighting devices. , automatic sprinklers, boiler safety plugs, in the event of a fire, the pistons of some water pipes will "automatically" melt and spray out water.
3. Gallium can interact with most metals at high temperatures. When converted from liquid to solid, the expansion rate is 3.1% and should be stored in plastic containers. The Chinese character gallium refers to a rare blue-white trivalent metal element.
Extended information:
The development history of antimony, bismuth and gallium
1. The history of antimony
As early as 3100 BC In the pre-dynastic period of Egypt, when cosmetics were just invented, antimony trisulfide was used as eye shadow powder for cosmetics.
It is generally believed that pure antimony was first produced by Jābir ibn Hayyān in the 8th century. However, controversy persists, with translator Marcelan Bethelo claiming that antimony is not mentioned in Jabir's book, but others believe that Bethelo translated only a few unimportant works, and that the most relevant ones (probably describing Antimony) have not been translated and their content is still unknown.
The naturally occurring pure antimony in the earth's crust was first recorded in 1783 by the Swedish British scientist William Henry Bragg. Variety samples were collected from the Sala silver mine in Sala, V?stmanland, Sweden.
2. A brief history of the development of bismuth
It was known in the 15th century that bismuth was prepared in 1737 by J.Hellot and C.J.Geoffroy.
The metal bismuth was used in ancient Greece and Rome as the base for boxes and chests. But it was not until 1556 that German G. Agricola proposed the idea that antimony and bismuth were two independent metals in his book "On Metals". In 1737, Hellot obtained a small sample when analyzing cobalt ore by fire method, but he did not know what it was. In 1753, British C. Geoffroy and T. Bergman confirmed that bismuth was a chemical element and named it bismuth. In 1757, Frenchman Geoffroy identified it as a new element after analysis and research.
3. The history of the discovery of gallium
Gallium was discovered in Paris by Bois Beautrand in 1875. He observed a new purple line in the atomic spectrum of zinc extracted from the mineral sphalerite ore (ZnS). He knew this meant the presence of an unknown element.
What Bois-Baudran did not realize was that its existence and properties had been successfully predicted by Mendeleev, whose periodic table showed that there was a gap under aluminum that had not yet been occupied. He predicted that the atomic weight of this unknown element was about 68, and its density was 5.9g/cm?.
In November 1875, Bois-Baudran extracted and purified the new metal and demonstrated that it resembled aluminum. In December 1875, he announced it to the French Academy of Sciences.