Osmium

Osmium ( ) is a chemical element. It has the symbol Os and atomic number 76. Osmium is a hard, brittle, blue-gray or blue-black transition metal in the platinum family, and is the densest natural element. Osmium is twice as dense as lead. The density of osmium is , slightly greater than that of iridium, the second densest element. Osmium is found in nature as an alloy, mostly in platinum ores. Osmium is also used in alloys, with platinum, iridium and other platinum group metals. Those alloys are employed in fountain pen tips, electrical contacts and in other applications where extreme durability and hardness are needed.

Characteristics

Physical properties

Osmium is the densest metallic element and has a blue-gray tint. It is a hard but brittle metal that remains lustrous even at high temperatures. Because of its hardness, brittleness, low vapor pressure (the lowest of the platinum group metals), and very high melting point (the fourth highest of all elements), solid osmium is difficult to machine, form, or work. Osmium is generally considered to be the densest known element, slightly denser than iridium. Calculations of density from the space lattice may produce the most reliable data for these elements, giving a density of for iridium versus for osmium. The extraordinary density of osmium is a consequence of the lanthanide contraction.

Osmium possesses quite remarkable chemical and physical properties. It has the highest melting point and the lowest vapor pressure in the platinum family. Osmium has a very low compressibility. Correspondingly, its bulk modulus is extremely high, reported between and , which rivals that of diamond (). However, the hardness of osmium is lower than diamond, only .

Chemical properties

Osmium forms compounds with the oxidation states ranging from −2 to +8. The most common oxidation states are +2, +3, +4, and +8. The +8 oxidation state is notable for being the highest attained by any chemical element, and aside from osmium, is encountered only in xenon and ruthenium. The oxidation state −1 and −2 represented by the two reactive compounds and are used in the synthesis of osmium cluster compounds.

The most common compound exhibiting the +8 oxidation state is osmium tetroxide. This toxic compound is formed when powdered osmium is exposed to air, and is a very volatile, water-soluble, pale yellow, crystalline solid with a strong smell. Therefore, osmium powder has a characteristic smell of osmium tetroxide. Osmium tetroxide boils at 130 °C and is a powerful oxidizing agent. By contrast, osmium dioxide (OsO₂) is black, non-volatile, and much less reactive and toxic.

Only two osmium compounds have major applications: osmium tetroxide — for staining tissue in electron microscopy and the non-volatile osmates for organic oxidation reactions.

In general, the lower oxidation states of osmium are stabilized by ligands that are good σ-donors (such as amines) and π-acceptors (heterocycles containing nitrogen). The higher oxidation states are stabilized by strong σ- and π-donors, such as and .

Isotopes

Osmium has seven naturally occurring isotopes, six of which are stable: , , , , , and (most abundant) . undergoes alpha decay with such long half-life ((2.0±1.1) years) that for practical purposes it can be considered stable. Alpha decay is predicted for all 7 naturally occurring isotopes, but due to very long half-lives, it was observed only for . It is predicted that and can undergo double beta decay but this radioactivity has not been observed yet.

is the daughter of (half-life ) and is used extensively in dating terrestrial as well as meteoric rocks (see rhenium-osmium dating). It has also been used to measure the intensity of continental weathering over geologic time and to fix minimum ages for stabilization of the mantle roots of continental cratons. This decay is a reason why rhenium-rich minerals are abnormally rich in . However, the most notable application of Os in dating has been in conjunction with iridium, to analyze the layer of shocked quartz along the K-T boundary that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

History

Osmium (from Greek osme (ὀσμή) meaning "smell") was discovered in 1803 by Smithson Tennant and William Hyde Wollaston in London, England. The discovery of osmium is intertwined with that of platinum and the other metals of the platinum group. Platinum reached Europe as platina ("small silver"), first encountered in the late 17th century in silver mines around the Chocó Department, in Colombia. The discovery that this metal was not an alloy, but a distinct new element, was published in 1748. Chemists who studied platinum dissolved it in aqua regia (a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acids) to create soluble salts. They always observed a small amount of a dark, insoluble residue. Victor Collet-Descotils, Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, and Louis Nicolas Vauquelin also observed the black residue in 1803, but did not obtain enough material for further experiments. However, Tennant, who had the advantage of a much larger amount of residue, continued his research and identified two previously undiscovered elements in the black residue, iridium and osmium. Discovery of the new elements was documented in a letter to the Royal Society on June 21, 1804.

Uranium and osmium were early successful catalysts in the Haber process, the nitrogen fixation reaction of nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia, giving enough yield to make the process economically successful. However, in 1908 cheaper catalysts based on iron and iron oxides were introduced for the first pilot plants.

Nowadays, osmium is primarily obtained from the processing of platinum and nickel ores.

Occurrence

Osmium is the least abundant stable element in the Earth's crust with an average mass fraction of 0.05 ppb in the continental crust. metals]] Osmium is found in nature as an uncombined element or in natural alloys; especially the iridium–osmium alloys, osmiridium (osmium rich), and iridiosmium (iridium rich). In the nickel and copper deposits, the platinum group metals occur as sulfides (i.e., (Pt,Pd)S)), tellurides (e.g., PtBiTe), antimonides (e.g., PdSb), and arsenides (e.g., PtAs₂); in all these compounds platinum is exchanged by a small amount of iridium and osmium. As with all of the platinum group metals, osmium can be found naturally in alloys with nickel or copper.

Within the Earth's crust, osmium, like iridium, is found at highest concentrations in three types of geologic structure: igneous deposits (crustal intrusions from below), impact craters, and deposits reworked from one of the former structures. The largest known primary reserves are in the Bushveld igneous complex in South Africa, though the large copper–nickel deposits near Norilsk in Russia, and the Sudbury Basin in Canada are also significant sources of osmium. Smaller reserves can be found in the United States.

Production

Osmium is obtained commercially as a by-product from nickel and copper mining and processing. During electrorefining of copper and nickel, noble metals such as silver, gold and the platinum group metals, together with non-metallic elements such as selenium and tellurium settle to the bottom of the cell as anode mud, which forms the starting material for their extraction. In order to separate the metals, they must first be brought into solution. Several methods are available depending on the separation process and the composition of the mixture; two representative methods are fusion with sodium peroxide followed by dissolution in aqua regia, and dissolution in a mixture of chlorine with hydrochloric acid. Osmium, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium can be separated from platinum, gold and base metals by their insolubility in aqua regia, leaving a solid residue. Rhodium can be separated from the residue by treatment with molten sodium bisulfate. The insoluble residue, containing Ru, Os and Ir, is treated with sodium oxide, in which Ir is insoluble, producing water-soluble Ru and Os salts. After oxidation to the volatile oxides, is separated from by precipitation of (NH₄)₃RuCl₆ with ammonium chloride.

After it is dissolved, osmium is separated from the other platinum group metals by distillation or extraction with organic solvents of the volatile osmium tetroxide. The first method is similar to the procedure used by Tennant and Wollaston. Both methods are suitable for industrial scale production. In either case, the product is reduced using hydrogen, yielding the metal as a powder or sponge that can be treated using powder metallurgy techniques.

Neither the producers nor the United States Geological Survey published any production amounts for osmium. Estimations of the United States consumption date published from 1971, which gives a consumption in the United States of 2000 troy ounces (62 kg), would suggest that the production is still less than 1 ton per year.

Applications

Because of the volatility and extreme toxicity of its oxide, osmium is rarely used in its pure state, and is instead often alloyed with other metals. Those alloys are utilized in high-wear applications. Osmium alloys such as osmiridium are very hard and, along with other platinum group metals, are used in the tips of fountain pens, instrument pivots, and electrical contacts, as they can resist wear from frequent operation. The stylus (needle) in early phonograph designs was also made of osmium, especially for 78-rpm records, until sapphire and synthetic diamond replaced the metal in later designs for 45-rpm and 33-rpm long-playing records.

Osmium tetroxide has been used in fingerprint detection and in staining fatty tissue for optical and electron microscopy. As a strong oxidant, it cross-links lipids mainly by reacting with unsaturated carbon-carbon bonds, and thereby both fixes biological membranes in place in tissue samples and simultaneously stains them. Because osmium atoms are extremely electron dense, osmium staining greatly enhances image contrast in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies of biological materials. Those carbon materials have otherwise very weak TEM contrast (see image). Another osmium compound, osmium ferricyanide (OsFeCN), exhibits similar fixing and staining action.

An alloy of 90% platinum and 10% osmium is used in surgical implants such as pacemakers and replacement of pulmonary valves.

The tetroxide and a related compound, potassium osmate, are important oxidants for chemical synthesis, despite being very poisonous. For the Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, which uses osmate for the conversion of a double bond into a vicinal diol, Karl Barry Sharpless won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001.

In 1898 an Austrian chemist, Auer von Welsbach, developed the Oslamp with a filament made of osmium, which he introduced commercially in 1902. After only a few years, osmium was replaced by the more stable metal tungsten (also known as wolfram). Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal, and using it in light bulbs increases the luminous efficacy and life of incandescent lamps.

Like palladium, powdered osmium effectively absorbs hydrogen atoms. This could make osmium a potential candidate for a metal hydride battery electrode. However, osmium is expensive and would react with potassium hydroxide, the most common battery electrolyte.

Osmium has high reflectivity in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum; for example, at 600 Å osmium has a reflectivity two times that of gold. This high reflectivity is desirable in space-based UV spectrometers which have reduced mirror sizes due to space limitations. Osmium-coated mirrors were flown in several space missions aboard the Space Shuttle, but it soon became clear that the oxygen radicals in the low earth orbit are abundant enough to significantly deteriorate the osmium layer.

Precautions

Finely divided metallic osmium is pyrophoric. Airborne low concentrations of osmium tetroxide vapor can cause lung congestion and skin or eye damage, and should therefore be used in a fume hood. Osmium tetroxide is rapidly reduced to relatively inert compounds by polyunsaturated vegetable oils, such as corn oil.

Price

Osmium is usually sold as a 99% pure powder. Like other precious metals, it is measured by troy weight and by grams. Its price at 2010 is about $400 per Troy ounce (or about $13 per gram), depending on the quantity and its supplier.

References

External links

WebElements.com: Osmium

Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Osmium

Category:Chemical elements Category:Transition metals Category:Noble metals Category:Precious metals *