Anyone interested in buying some zirconium?

Quote: Originally posted by Bot0nist

Interesting. Should this go in reagent and apparatus acquisition?

Hmm I am new to this forum but I don't think zirconium classes as a "common chemical" but I defer to the more experienced regulars here.

Also it is the buyer's responsibility to check that they don't need additional permits to import the stuff.

FWIW the stuff is pretty quiescent unless it is in forms of high specific surface area, see "Review of zirconium-zircaloy pyrophoricity." Great bedtime reading
http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/5791423-14Pgn9/

[Edited on 19-4-2011 by IndependentBoffin]

Quote: Originally posted by IndependentBoffin

Also it is the buyer's responsibility to check that they don't need additional permits to import the stuff.

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In

Quote: Originally posted by IndependentBoffin   Also it is the buyer's responsibility to check that they don't need additional permits to import the stuff. You cannot export it from the US of A without a permit. Think cluster bombs.

Quote: Originally posted by IndependentBoffin

FWIW the stuff is pretty quiescent unless it is in forms of high specific surface area, see "Review of zirconium-zircaloy pyrophoricity." Great bedtime reading http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/5791423-14Pgn9/

I'm going to move this thread to "Reagents & Apparatus Acquisition" : as it's more appropriate at that section.....

However there IS a source for Zirconium that you may find available; especially if you have a photography oriented store near-by.....Flashbulbs. Certain brands have Zirconium wool and do still exist if you know where to look.





[Edited on 20-4-2011 by quicksilver]

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver

I'm going to move this thread to "Reagents & Apparatus Acquisition" : as it's more appropriate at that section..... However there IS a source for Zirconium that you may find available; especially if you have a photography oriented store near-by.....Flashbulbs. Certain brands have Zirconium wool and do still exist if you know where to look.

OK no problem quicksilver.

Getting zirconium from flashbulbs would be a very time consuming and expensive exercise

Quote: Originally posted by Fleaker

These prices are much lower than that available from Alfa, Goodfellow, and Advent RM.

I was going to charge even more but decided that this forum is probably not flush with rich corporates but scientists, engineers, technicians, etc. like yours truly who just enjoy the work we do. So I am giving you all a discount

Yes I know how much those guys cost, and also Allegheny Technologies metals. I scoped them out when I was sourcing for the metal for my work

Haven't had much problems importing it. It comes in tubs with distilled water over it. Please keep under 60 Celcius

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver

Certain brands have Zirconium wool and do still exist if you know where to look.

I have a crapload of those antique flashbulbs!!! Now I don't know if these are Magnesium wool or Zirconium... The ones I got have a General Electric red logo on top of the bulb.

Robert

Quote: Originally posted by Arthur Dent

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver   Certain brands have Zirconium wool and do still exist if you know where to look. I have a crapload of those antique flashbulbs!!! Now I don't know if these are Magnesium wool or Zirconium... The ones I got have a General Electric red logo on top of the bulb. Robert

I would be rather interested in spare chunks of these (pass-around the classroom sized samples, at least 1"):
Molybdenum rod, OD 150mm: USD$100/kg
Tantalum rod, OD 150mm: USD$1034/kg
Cobalt rod, OD 150mm: USD$302/kg
Nickel rod, OD 150mm: USD$62/kg
Zirconium rod, OD 150mm: USD$140/kg
Niobium rod, OD 150mm: USD$345/kg

So long as the price is educator-salary friendly It's much easier to buy from somebody who works with and may have spare parts, rather than a person selling samples and full pieces.

One of the board members wants to buy 10g of swarf. Here's what 10g looks like.

With some very careful measurements you can check the density is ~6.52 g/cc, not a conclusive test of purity but a readily available one.

If you burn a filament of the zirconium swarf you will see it burns slowly with a white hot flame, producing little smoke unlike magnesium or aluminium which produces white vapours of the oxide in the gas phase. Not to be confused with the burning oil coating it will come in, to prevent further atmospheric oxidation (this burns first with a yellow flame).

If enough people are interested I will put up some still pictures or a video of the zirconium burning

This is a picture of a ~30cm long Zr swarf burning. It burns steadily with a bright flame and little smoke.

Quote: Originally posted by Fleaker

How much would a kilogram of swarf be?

The main cost will be shipping. 10g occupies about 200ml without compaction. I won't compact it unless the buyer specifically requests, because it would result in broken filaments. Longer filaments are always nicer

PM me with your general location to estimate shipping.

Hi guys,

Please see pictures of a short Zr bar, 4.5kg of swarf (fills a 25kg polybag) and 100 - 150 micron Zr powder attached.

Surprisingly a pile of moist Zr powder is not as flammable compared to swarf.

Early on when I was assessing the safety of handling micronised Zr powder, I brought a blowtorch to the Zr powder and it needs to glow red hot before a self-sustaining reaction happens (it looks like a bright white spot moving around under a dark pile), although bits which were blown off from the pile by the blowtorch's airflow and flew into free air burned like bright sparklers.

The swarf however once lit keeps burning like when you light steel wool, only with a more incandescent flame.

I'm sure the Zr powder behaves differently if you put a dry quantity in a container, shake it around to aerosolise it and then ignite it , but I would prefer not to upset the neighbours

I'm buying some heavier digital scales (up to 50kg). I'll then put the short pure Zr billet on the scales with some linear scales so you can roughly estimate the density by pictures to be 6.52g/cm3, thus providing evidence of the material and the purity.

Quote: Originally posted by IndependentBoffin

One of the board members wants to buy 10g of swarf. Here's what 10g looks like. If you burn a filament of the zirconium swarf you will see it burns slowly with a white hot flame, producing little smoke unlike magnesium or aluminium which produces white vapours of the oxide in the gas phase.

Quote: Originally posted by The WiZard is In

Smokeless Flashlight Powder Zirconium 28 pts. Zr hydride 7 Magnesium 7 Barium nitrate 30 Barium oxide 25 Rice starch 5

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver

However there IS a source for Zirconium that you may find available; especially if you have a photography oriented store near-by.....Flashbulbs. Certain brands have Zirconium wool and do still exist if you know where to look.

Old flash bulbs can still be had. I bought these at the sadly now
defunct Alexanders Hardware.

NEW YORK TIMES
STRICTLY BUSINESS; A Cluttered Treasure-Trove Closes
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: January 11, 1993

A customer might wander into Alexander's Hardware, peruse its marvels for a wondrous lunch hour, then pick up a couple nuts and bolts from one of thousands of bins.

"No charge," Arthur Alexander would say. "I'll get you next time."
No more next times. After 83 years, the bafflingly cluttered emporium at 60 Reade Street in lower Manhattan is in the final spasms of closing. It is going the way of other old-fashioned Manhattan hardware stores, places like Kamenstein's on Third Avenue at Ninth Street, Tinker's Paradise over on Park Row, several places on Canal Street. [“Radio Row” done in by the WTC which needed its land.]

Rents are too high, hours too long, profit margins too slim. His two grown children shun working 60 hours a week in a family business. Mr. Alexander will soon be 68, the age at which his father, who never retired from the store, died.

The future, Mr. Alexander says with no rancor, belongs to outlets selling nuts and bolts in cellophane bubbles for a dollar or so a throw, not mom-and-pop joints that think nothing of giving a couple away.

Alexander's was officially closed Jan. 1 to make way for a shoe store, but the doors are still open for a couple days to get rid of as much stuff as possible. So devotees continue to wander in, looking for that last bargain, a suddenly remembered necessity, an inconceivable about-face in the march of time.

There was Richard Genovese, a research analyst, who once found a period lock for a 60-year-old closet on a dusty shelf. "The city has lost one of its treasures," he said.

"It's like digging around in my grandfather's attic," said Chris Piazza, a sculptor who has been spending her days -- and around $2,000 so far -- buying interesting things. One find: 200 foot-shaped treadles for old-fashioned sewing machines she intends to use in a whimsical model of the Eiffel Tower.

The place has been so much more than a hardware store. In sorting through things, workers have found snakeskins, brassieres from the 1940's, a few mottled fur coats. They have sifted through thousands of flexible screwdrivers used to screw around corners, tens of thousands of mother-of-pearl buttons for old-fashioned high-topped shoes for women, bayonets from the Spanish-American War.

Amid the ball-bearings and washers, they have stumbled upon inexplicable surprises. What did anyone ever want with lipstick that looks and tastes like eggnog?

"This has always been more than a hardware store," Mr. Alexander said.

Mr. Alexander has followed firmly in the footsteps of his father, Samuel, in buying big quantities of things nobody wants, then finding novel ways to market them. Customs auctions, bankruptcy sales and the like were the Alexanders' hunting ground.

Samuel Alexander once latched on to 250,000 World War I wooden ammunition boxes and sold them as any number of things. Many went as shoeshine boxes after he hammered cast-iron stands on top.

Arthur Alexander acquired 10,000 pounds of body trim intended for 1939 Chrysler Airflow automobiles. A sign over a huge pile of them suggested the strips would make terrific stakes for tomato plants. Another time he became the proud owner of 45,000 aluminum heating elements used in making crock pots, which had come and gone. The elements moved briskly as refrigerator defrosting coils.

Currently, he is scrambling to unload 70,000 hinges for the music holders on pianos. Clearly, the perfect thing for doghouse doors.
Sprouting from a successful pushcart, the store has occupied several downtown locations. "America's Smallest Hardware Store in America's Largest City," said an early advertisement. In 1949, its reopening after a fire prompted a loyalist to write that he "would certainly have missed his daily browsing of the very interesting store."

Though Mr. Alexander is going to make more money as a landlord than he ever made as a merchant, he acknowledges that he is saying goodbye to a piece of his family. Both his parents worked in the store, as did his younger brother, Lawrence. Tears flow down his face when he tells of Lawrence being diagnosed as having what proved to be fatal polio on the same day they moved into their present store in 1945.

One of the storekeeper's stories concerns a pair of suspicious characters who for an extended period came in on Friday evenings to buy crowbars. Finally, Mr. Alexander informed the police.

The men were arrested with a trunkful of used crowbars just after knocking off a safe. Fearful that the burglars might find out who fingered them, Mr. Alexander began carrying his licensed pistol everywhere.

He has also gained wisdom, including the unshakeable conviction that vacuum cleaners can always be fixed, no matter what. "They're built to last forever," he said.

But it is Mr. Arthur Alexander's human touch that will be most sorely missed by his regulars -- how he would know the history of each item, the patient and intricate way he would instruct a customer in the use of some esoteric object.

"It was wonderful to know you all these years," Pearl Heller of Washington Heights told him, recalling the slender candleholders on which he years ago gave her a good price.

Photo: Arthur Alexander, 67, posing with vintage military paraphernalia in his hardware store, which is closing. (Jack Manning/The New York Times)

Here dobe some output info on flashbulbs.

The "B's" (Blue) ones were for colour photo's.

http://www.flashbulbs.com/flash_info.htm

The pics are of la 3B's and SM's. It had occured to me that I
could have sold the SM's to the IRA! The SM's were photo'd
through the glass, notice the bridge wire. When I have the time
I'll remove the glass and get out my Nikon PB-4 bellows for a
better/closer shot. And find out if the wire in la 3B's is zirconium.

The SM's are 'bout the same size as the popular #6 flashbulb.
The one in the photograph in held in ring stand clamp.

Google yields 311 000 hits for flashbulbs - try this one —
http://www.darklightimagery.net/flashbulbs.html




Trivia - Connection? The IRA stopped making bombs and
Polaroid stopped making film.

[Edited on 26-4-2011 by The WiZard is In]

#3 (B) Flashbulbs