Bismuth from Bolivia

Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a red and white main group metal. In the past, bismuth often confused with tin or lead it because it shares many properties with it. In 1753 succeeded the French scientist Claude François Geoffroy to separate bismuth from lead. The name comes from the German Wismut, which is probably a corruption of white mass. Bismuth is widely used in the production of cosmetics and medicines. In addition, there are other industrial applications: Bismanol (an alloy of manganese and bismuth) can be used to make strong permanent magnets. The low melting point of many bismuth alloys makes it suitable for application in fire detectors. It is therefore used in the Woods metal alloy. If bismuth catalyst is used in the plastics industry. In nuclear installations bismuth can be used as carrier of 233U and 235U. Bismuth is used with a Bismuth alloy of tin, for a coating on dovetail blades of jet engines is used in soldering. The property that it expands on cooling, making bismuth here in some cases, well suited for. Fireworks are sometimes enriched with bismuth to create beautiful color effects. In a eutectic mixture with lead as a cooling agent in a lead-cooled reactor. Since the beginning of the nineties is examined the extent to which bismuth can be used as non-toxic replacement for lead in various industrial formation processes, such as the hail in 'n shot cartridge from a shotgun, which is already applied. Bismuth is a brittle heavy metal that if only one of that group is non-toxic. In addition, bismuth is the heaviest heavy metal, and in addition, the most diamagnetic. It has a very low electrical conductivity of all metals and exhibits the highest Hall effect. Bismuth burns to form a bright blue / green flame. Bismuth is one of the few substances that expands when frozen; a feature that would inform the metal with water and gallium.