Osmium was briefly used as the first type of metal filament in light bulbs. It was better than a carbon filament, but the Osmium was so expensive back then (circa 1920s) you got a refund if you returned a blown bulb for recycling. Also thieves would break into houses to steal Osmium light bulbs. The brand name Osram came from this use of Osmium. Then Tungsten was found to work better as a filament and was a lot cheaper (at the time), and this lead to the brand name Tungsram which technically still exists but they went back to using Osram. Originally a Hungarian company.
Interesting, but only half-true. Osram has always been a German company. The name Osram was registered as a trademark by the "Deutsche Gasglühlicht Anstalt" ("German gas light association") located in Berlin in 1906! They later named the company after the product. The German name of Tungsten is Wolfram, hence the international standard symbol for tungsten is W. So Osram is a port-manteau of "OSmium" and "WolfRAM". From the late 1970s to 2013 Osram was owned by Siemens and is now the subsidiary of an Austrian corporation. Tungsram is the Hungarian company you're talking about, they never used Osmium in their light bulbs but tungsten only. Their product- and later company name is made up from the English and Hungarian name of Tungsten "TUNGsten" and "VolfRAM".
Osmium is used to make other metals and alloys harder. It's always used in very small amount. As a rule of thumb, anything over 0.1% will make the alloy to hard and brittle. Rarely used at more than 0.01% for pretty much any use. The highest concentration is used to make turn table needles that are almost as durable as the diamond ones.
I learnt about the deadly consequences of this as a teenager when my chemistry teacher dropped his display piece and immediately ordered the class out of the lab to be safe. That was fun 🙄😏
Even if he dropped it, it probably broke into a couple of pieces. It is osmium dust that will cause the problems but at least he took precautions anyway just to be safe. Chemistry was my favorite class as you can tell :)
@@KickAssScience92 You're not going to make osmium dust. I just recently tried grinding up some tiny crystal fragments of osmium into powder with a tungsten rod, and even though tungsten is harder than osmium, it still got scratched to hell. Also failed to make osmium powder.
Osmium tetroxide is the standard fixative for biological material in transmission electron microscopy. It binds to lipids and gives superior contrast, especially when the material is post stained with uranium acetate.
@@michaelrenper796 I worked with these substances for more that 60 years, am now 82 and am still in relatively good health. Safe laboratory practice is always a good idea.
@@nettewilson5926 The uranium acetate is basically harmless. If eaten it's mildly poisonous, much less than lead (but still poisonous, causes kidney damage, don't eat it.) The radiation is low, and made of alpha particles so completely harmless outside the body, and less dangerous than the heavy metal toxicity even if eaten. Using osmium tetroxide is the only really dangerous part of the procedure. It polymerizes the unsaturated fatty bonds of your body, turning them black and impervious. There are a lot of unsaturated fats in your eyes and lungs. Neither organ works well when polymerized.
In high school I had a part-time job where they kept osmium tetroxide in a mini-fridge in one of the lab rooms. There was a post-it note saying "Don't put your lunch in here!" with a skull and crossbones, crudely drawn with a ball point pen. None of us put our lunch in there.
That is oddly terrifying. Once I kept a bottle of bromine in the freezer because it kept outgrowing and corroding the shelf it was on. The tiny amount that did outgass from the bottle was enough to prevent mold from growing on anything in the fridge portion. OsO4 plus lunch now that would be too spicy for me.😅
It should be noted that sintered osmium is at risk of breaking and shattering, not fully dense osmium (the beaded form). Fully dense osmium beads are anything but fragile. You can strike it with a hammer many many times and it will remain entirely intact. I had to jerry-rig myself a tungsten hammer and even then it took 8 whacks to break it.
Correct the sintered osmium is fragile. Wow it took that many hits to break it! What size were the beads. The ones I have are the arc melted 1 gm beads from Luciteria. They also have osmium bullion bars but they are sintered.
@@KickAssScience92 It was a five gram test bead that I've used for hundreds of chemical tests. It's also worth noting that osmium, being a platinum group metal, is ridiculously corrosion resistant. There's very little it reacts with. We tested osmium in manganese heptoxide and it took 30 minutes just to dissolve 1 milligram.
@@KickAssScience92 Hi I was thinking of buying these beads, are they worth it? Can those beads be used to form jewellry to have constant contact with human skin? Thanks for the video.
@@ejkalegal3145 Thanks for watching. The beads are available on Ebay or Luciteria. Luciteria sells 1 gram beads for around $50 USD. Osmium in this form is safe to handle.
@@ejkalegal3145 Yeah, I've been wearing an osmium pendant 24/7 for nearly a year now. I can say it's perfectly safe for skin contact, and I also have no skin allergies with it.
Lots of very intelligent people in this thread. Reading through the comments I learned just as much as the video. I appreciate the sharing of knowledge.
Worth mentioning is the use of its hardness by the Osmiriod pen company to slow the wear in the tips of pen nibs. I remember the brand from my school days in the Sixties.
Wow that takes me back!! I was in secondary school from 1958 to 1963 and used an Osmiroid fountain pen the whole time. I remember using little bottles of Quink ink to fill the pen although I can't remember how I did it. There was a little lever on the side so I suppose I used that. There were two types of fountain pen available, the Parker pen and the Osmiroid. I liked the Osmirois because it had a selection of wide nibs for my Italic style handwriting.
@@patrickcorliss8878 Well, well, I also learned to write Italics around 1962 - 63, here in NZ. I was quite happy with it, but I believe all the parents thought our Headmaster was a bit odd and too progressive, what with his Classical music and Yoga, LOL! The lever compressed a rubber bulb inside. You raised the lever, put the nib in the ink, dropped the lever and the bulb expanded to suck up the ink. Blotting paper after that!
You can grow crystal clusters like thus by putting osmium sponge, osmium tetroxide, and a tiny amount of iodine in a sealed quartz tube. Heat the osmium tetroxide/sponge side gently to get it to make vapor in the tube, heat the other end very strongly. The crystals will grow on the hot end. 😁
Osmium was also used to tip Gold Nibs used in Fountain pens decades ago. It was prized for its abrasion resistance when applied to just the tip of the gold nibs. It was fused to the gold nibs via a high voltage electrical arc.
Its use in TEM preparation involves using OsO4 solutions to stain tissue blocks. It is generally purchased inside sealed glass ampules as a clear fluid = a small amount of the material dissolved in water. The ampules are broken open and the fluid used immediately and then disposed of (disposal of such a toxic material is really dicey as well). This needs to be done in a fume hood or in some other way to isolate the gas. To show students how nasty the stuff is, and to be able to recognize it what was happening if some was accidentally spilled, a prof I once had, had us students stand across a room from a small amount (a few grams ) of an OsO4 solution in a small beaker placed in a fume hood, with the hood door open and the ventilation off. Within a few minutes, a strong but very odd, metallic taste occurred - mostly on the sides and back of the tongue which started to hurt, about at this time one's eyes also began to ache/hurt. A that point the beaker was covered, the fume hood cover closed and the hood started so as to remove the vapors. Windows were opened and fans started to ventilate the room. Recovery took about 5 minutes. OsO4 sublimates (evaporates into a vapor without going through a liquid form) easily and rapidly. While Osmium metal may be safe to handle, OsO4 is decidedly hazardous, as the material vaporizes out of a water solution easily, it is exceedingly poisonous and dangerous to work with. Its density is what makes it a good TEM stain, but every microscopist I have ever known to use the stuff treats it with the respect it deserves. The damn stuff is truly scary to work around...
I had the opportunity to work with osmium when I took a class in Electron Microscopy. It had its own refrigerator, which turned completely black inside - just from one container. All work with the osmium had to be done inside of a fume hood, which also turned black from repeated exposure.
@@02ennuu-zg5tb Ha! Perhaps not the best student when younger. So, probably more accurate to say I don't remember hearing about it before. And definitely not with such a dose of danger!
Osmium actually makes a pretty good coating for the edges of blades to maintain sharpness. Osmitanium (osmium alloyed with titanium) is basically adamantium...but good luck making it with our present tech level!
I was once acquainted with a person who owns 1 liter-sized cube of Osmium as a trinket - 10x10x10 cm, it weights 22.6 kg, as Osmium should. You do NOT expect the weight of it, when you try to lift it. He told me it's safe to handle, "but please don't drop it". I assumed that it would be costly to repair if it got dents or something from hit after drop, but I didn't consider toxicity of it. I asked him about the cost and it was in line of 30k USD - that was around 12-15 years ago, mind you.
A element with such a great heat resistance must have uses. Immediately I think on high voltage switch which often are in danger of smelting when they are not closing fast enough (to prevent a early transmission through the air).
If a little bit of it off-gasses it can blind the whole neighborhood. I used to want to add some to my elements collection, until I learned about its toxic qualities. No thanks on all that.
Yes , although i thought that Swann of Britain is the one who first used osmium in late 1800s 18 months or so prior to Edison carbon filament light bulb which wasn't really perfected for his patent and public release. The Edison carbon filament doped with rare earths like thorium and the other lanthanides used in gas mantles was a brilliant idea but fragile maybe. Edison did invent the carbon filament if he doesn't get credit for electric lamp .
Interesting. I read your closing disclaimer and I am wondering how element collectors actually go about collecting the elements? Since some are gases, some unstable, etc... I guess I'll do a search on that.
11:45 pm West Coast time, Tuesday, 14 November 2023. A Crazy Old Man who tries to learn something new every day, was absolutely intrigued. So much so that it sent me off find out more for 15 minutes before I go to bed. Thanks for the lesson!
Why does it not combine with oxygen except when finely divided? This wasn't explained. Also using it in alloys in electrical contacts seems like a bad idea because of the possibility of sparking and pitting slowly vaporizing the metal in the contact. Any contactor that has current will spark to some extent (which will pit the contact) unless you have a separate pre connection area with a resistor that pre charges the capacitors in the circuit you are connecting (known as an anti spark connector, basically it connects through the resistor first which causes a slow rather than an immediate rise in current before the contacts fully interface with each other)
Osmium dust does have more net surface area than the large chunk and is exposed to more oxygen. The volume to surface area ratio is great enough that osmium can release excess heat into its own interior, which does not contact the oxygen in the air.
Interesting. The only other time I've heard the word "tetroxide" is for hypergolic rocket fuel oxidizer, "nitrogen tetroxide" It is some foul and deadly stuff.
Yeah I heard about that. But the man who found the alien mummies is a known hoaxer. People like that dilute real research on the search for extraterrestrial life.
Unless you heat osmium metal to around 1,000°F, it's not going to produce any osmium tetroxide. Even the powder isn't an efficient producer of the tetroxide.
@@KickAssScience92Good morning! I have osimium ore. In ore it has 3 elements Os, Au, ir. And a few other elements but in very small proportions such as Pb, Cb. Do you have a formula to separate them? Thank you
First time viewer - and I'm going to subscribe. Some things I'd love to see you to have covered, since I didn't really know or think about Osmium until now. (1) You keep saying it's dangerous in powdered form and easily shattered... but don't specify why - I'm assuming the expanded surface area.. But what about -that- makes it bad? Is the oxidized form easily absorbed through the skin, or does it pick up a static charge making it worse than glitter to remove, or is is it just the gas it can give off? And if it's just the gas, how dangerous IS that gas? If a one gram bead costs $40, is smashing your bed going to yield enough gas if collected over time, to hurt you? Ok - that aside... why is it optimal for use in ball point pens? That's possibly the weirdest optimal use for a metal I've ever heard. I really wanted to know why it's used and how it was found to be the so good? And if it's safe in non-powdered form, then why were you able to find pictures of hands wrecked by "long term" exposure to it? People suck on the tips of ball point pens. People wear jewelry. And how did anyone manage long term exposure anyway - if it's found in parts per trillion in the crust and only 500kg is mined a year (I can't imagine any profitable mine getting this stuff out of the ground using people and their bare hands?) WHY is it even mined? Is it something found alongside something valuable? Would anyone ever make an "Osmium mine" if you can only get a few kilograms of the stuff and it's worth less than much easier to obtain materials? How do you obtain it - is it chemically precipitated, is whatever you're ACTUALLY mining melted down and this stuff with it's higher melting point is concentrated in the slag? .... I'm only stopping with my questions because I have to go to work so BIG TLDR: Good video, looking forward to more, but please if you find something odd about what you're talking about, go into some of the curous details about that oddity. I'm now looking at my large bag of ball point pens and wondering if I have a curiosity, hazardous waste, or an opportunity to freely collect some osmium. :P
Thanks for the comment and suggestions. Osmium is a byproduct of nickel and copper mining mainly from Russia and S Africa. When they electrorefine copper the minor metals like osmium, iridium and other PGMS settle out. The thing is the metal itself has very little industry use. Osmium was alloyed with iridium for pen tips many years ago. Other than that there is very little use for the metal itself. Now the main use of pure osmium metal is for element collectors and jewelry hence its low price per oz. There are a number of stores that sell osmium jewelry as it is a pretty blue metal (ex. oslery.com/en). Osmium metal chunks/beads by itself can be handled safely. It is the powder form (like the size of flour grains) that is very dangerous as there is more surface area to form poisonous osmium tetroxide. Although osmium tetroxide is dangerous it is used in the medical industry to treat arthritis with a light solution of OsO4 injected into the knees. Osmium tetroxide can cause blindness if it gets into the eyes. Osmium tetroxide must be stored in glass in a cold environment as it will penetrate plastic. By the way you can go to Luciteria.com to buy osmium 1 gram beads for $45 USD :)
Found a large clump of this in my backyard while gardening. It now sit’s on my coffee table in the lounge room. Very pretty to look at and makes a great talking piece
Cool beans. I found an alien space ship in my back yard. Little green men came out and said "Crazy Hair is right, we DID build the pyramids!! .... PSYCH!!" Then they got back in and took off. My therapist doesn't believe me. She thinks they definitely built the pyramids. She says piling stones on top of one another is some advanced alien sh*t, there's no other explanation.
@@madmattdigs9518 It’s looks identical to the thumbnail. I thought it was Galena until I watched this. The thumbnail is what got my attention. Anyway it’s very pretty and looks amazing. Friends have said the same.
ever thought about exposing osmium to compressed hydrogen . the chlorine smell is from electrolysis. caused by the friction in density . the transfer of electrons to insulate the mass from the difference. oxidation.
Human: I'm gonna smash and brake you into tiny little pieces and show you that just because you are the densest doesn't mean that you're unbreakable. Osmium: If you'll break me, I'll make a poisonous gas and mess up your skin. Humen: .... alright, no need to start a war. we cool right. Here's a cushioned case for you to comfortably rest with no risk of breaking, peace? Osmium: peace. And that's how peace was achieved with Osmium the world rarest precarious and deadly metal.
Osmic acid (osmium tetroxide) has been used (unlicensed) by rheumatologists to treat rheumatoid arthritis of the knee. It is injected into the synovial joint. The treatment room should have good ventilation with open windows. Any unused solution in the ampoules, syringes and needles are immersed in a jar of oil ( e.g. arachis oil) for disposal as even the vapour is toxic. The data sheet warns that there is a danger that the vapour can be absorbed into the cornea and the person will see rings in their vision for about two weeks. All ''nasty stuff'' I remember from my working days.
@@jerensteffen Osmium is a definitely a fascinating metal for sure. Did you get your cube from Luciteria? They have the 10 gm cubes for sale for just over $1000.
A common attempt at fraud was to put tungsten into gold because of how close it was to the weight of gold and try to pass it off. Imagine putting tungsten and osmium into gold to perfectly match the weight and volume to commit fraud. THAT would be hard to detect.
Osmium is too expensive and not cost effective to fake gold. You are right, tungsten is the only metal that weighs almost the same as gold. Only 0.04 gram difference in density. The thing is fraudsters use tungsten to fake gold bars larger than an ounce. It is not cost effective to fake a 1 gram gold bar. A one gram gold bar will bend easily(gold can be scratched with a fingernail) but a tungsten gold plated bar would be difficult to bend. Fraudsters are less likely to use tungsten in bars and coins that weigh less than an ounce, which is why I prefer small gold bars not large. The fraudster's real money is putting tungsten in large 100 oz or larger bars. One thing about tungsten is that it has the highest melting point of the metallic elements. The metal would need to be sintered so the the density may be less. Any fake one ounce tungsten gold plated coins/bars would have a lower density due to sintering and would stand out.
This is so cool to know. I’ve been handling osmium for years without knowing these facts. By handling, I do mean it’s the main ore used in the Mekanism mod for Minecraft!! 😉
Our company used to make a osmium solution that was then used to produce eye drops, because it widens the pupills so the doctor can properly look inside ...
The cheapest PGM metal is debatable. Either ruthenium or osmium. Osmium:400-800 USD per oz, Iridium over 4660 US per oz, Rhodium: 4100 USD per oz, Palladium: 900 USD per oz, Ruthenium 500 USD per oz, Platinum 880 USD per oz.
I have heard of that band before. The lead singer sounds very similar to Max Cavalera of Sepultura. Osmium is a the heaviest metal and Osmium is a heavy metal band, nice combo and a cool name. My favorite metal bands are Slayer, Megadeth, Opeth, Amon Amarth, Clutch, Paradise Lost, Sepultura (80's and 90's were their best years with Arise and Beneath the Remains) Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera.
@@KickAssScience92 Exactly! Pre flake it and bind solid with epoxy, like they do with frangible bullets, only osmium instead of coper. I'm guessing osmium is pretty soft?
If it can take high temperatures. Maybe we can use it in turbine blades for jet engines. Just got to figure out how to get around a few problems I guess.
higher firing temperatures increase the efficiency of turbine engines, but also create more NOx so there is a practical limit to the firing temps based on air emission regulations.
There is more surface area in dust form osmium than a large chunk of osmium for OsO4 to form. Powdered osmium is pyrophoric and can heat up easier whereas a large chunk transfers any heat into the metal itself preventing any chain reaction for OsO4 to form.
Gold is the deadliest precious metal. Millions have died for it.
Your comment is so true in that aspect! I had to pin it!
lmao, just because a species cant hold the greed for shiny stuff
lead has been pretty deadly also.
@@mojoneko8303 Lead is not a precious metal.
Almost as deadly as religion.
Osmium was briefly used as the first type of metal filament in light bulbs. It was better than a carbon filament, but the Osmium was so expensive back then (circa 1920s) you got a refund if you returned a blown bulb for recycling. Also thieves would break into houses to steal Osmium light bulbs. The brand name Osram came from this use of Osmium. Then Tungsten was found to work better as a filament and was a lot cheaper (at the time), and this lead to the brand name Tungsram which technically still exists but they went back to using Osram. Originally a Hungarian company.
Really interesting. Always wondered where they came up with that name.
Never knew that. I know tungsten is the go to metal for filaments in light bulbs but could not imagine osmium as a filament.
Never knew that cool stuff,
Interesting, but only half-true. Osram has always been a German company. The name Osram was registered as a trademark by the "Deutsche Gasglühlicht Anstalt" ("German gas light association") located in Berlin in 1906! They later named the company after the product. The German name of Tungsten is Wolfram, hence the international standard symbol for tungsten is W. So Osram is a port-manteau of "OSmium" and "WolfRAM". From the late 1970s to 2013 Osram was owned by Siemens and is now the subsidiary of an Austrian corporation. Tungsram is the Hungarian company you're talking about, they never used Osmium in their light bulbs but tungsten only. Their product- and later company name is made up from the English and Hungarian name of Tungsten "TUNGsten" and "VolfRAM".
@@einundsiebenziger5488 Thanks for the clarification.
In the fifties, osmium was use for phonograph needles because diamonds cost more at the time.
True! I remember it being one of the most common long life phonograph needle materials of that era.
i was wondering how such s tiny bit of metal could cost so much
Osmium is used to make other metals and alloys harder. It's always used in very small amount. As a rule of thumb, anything over 0.1% will make the alloy to hard and brittle. Rarely used at more than 0.01% for pretty much any use. The highest concentration is used to make turn table needles that are almost as durable as the diamond ones.
You beat me to the record player needle reference
I learnt about the deadly consequences of this as a teenager when my chemistry teacher dropped his display piece and immediately ordered the class out of the lab to be safe. That was fun 🙄😏
Even if he dropped it, it probably broke into a couple of pieces. It is osmium dust that will cause the problems but at least he took precautions anyway just to be safe. Chemistry was my favorite class as you can tell :)
@@KickAssScience92 he was a character, loved chemistry but unfortunately not the teacher.
@@KickAssScience92 You're not going to make osmium dust. I just recently tried grinding up some tiny crystal fragments of osmium into powder with a tungsten rod, and even though tungsten is harder than osmium, it still got scratched to hell. Also failed to make osmium powder.
@@charlottehardy822 let me guess, he "hated" you, right?
@@ejkalegal3145 nope he was just strange and easily distracted
Osmium tetroxide is the standard fixative for biological material in transmission electron microscopy. It binds to lipids and gives superior contrast, especially when the material is post stained with uranium acetate.
Christ
A healthy diet and work environment.
@@michaelrenper796 I worked with these substances for more that 60 years, am now 82 and am still in relatively good health. Safe laboratory practice is always a good idea.
🤯
@@nettewilson5926 The uranium acetate is basically harmless. If eaten it's mildly poisonous, much less than lead (but still poisonous, causes kidney damage, don't eat it.) The radiation is low, and made of alpha particles so completely harmless outside the body, and less dangerous than the heavy metal toxicity even if eaten. Using osmium tetroxide is the only really dangerous part of the procedure. It polymerizes the unsaturated fatty bonds of your body, turning them black and impervious. There are a lot of unsaturated fats in your eyes and lungs. Neither organ works well when polymerized.
In high school I had a part-time job where they kept osmium tetroxide in a mini-fridge in one of the lab rooms. There was a post-it note saying "Don't put your lunch in here!" with a skull and crossbones, crudely drawn with a ball point pen. None of us put our lunch in there.
Chemistry class was fun and dangerous for sure!
That is oddly terrifying. Once I kept a bottle of bromine in the freezer because it kept outgrowing and corroding the shelf it was on. The tiny amount that did outgass from the bottle was enough to prevent mold from growing on anything in the fridge portion. OsO4 plus lunch now that would be too spicy for me.😅
@@christopherleubner6633but that's the extra flavour 😢
It should be noted that sintered osmium is at risk of breaking and shattering, not fully dense osmium (the beaded form). Fully dense osmium beads are anything but fragile. You can strike it with a hammer many many times and it will remain entirely intact. I had to jerry-rig myself a tungsten hammer and even then it took 8 whacks to break it.
Correct the sintered osmium is fragile. Wow it took that many hits to break it! What size were the beads. The ones I have are the arc melted 1 gm beads from Luciteria. They also have osmium bullion bars but they are sintered.
@@KickAssScience92 It was a five gram test bead that I've used for hundreds of chemical tests.
It's also worth noting that osmium, being a platinum group metal, is ridiculously corrosion resistant. There's very little it reacts with. We tested osmium in manganese heptoxide and it took 30 minutes just to dissolve 1 milligram.
@@KickAssScience92 Hi I was thinking of buying these beads, are they worth it? Can those beads be used to form jewellry to have constant contact with human skin? Thanks for the video.
@@ejkalegal3145 Thanks for watching. The beads are available on Ebay or Luciteria. Luciteria sells 1 gram beads for around $50 USD. Osmium in this form is safe to handle.
@@ejkalegal3145 Yeah, I've been wearing an osmium pendant 24/7 for nearly a year now. I can say it's perfectly safe for skin contact, and I also have no skin allergies with it.
Osmium’s best use is to keep the X-men character Colossus unharmed.
Interesting. I had an oscilloscope (all Valve) that used Osmium alloy shield on the cathode ray tubes to keep out magnetic interference of the beam .
I think you are referring to Mu Metal, a nickel iron alloy designed just for this purpose.
Lots of very intelligent people in this thread. Reading through the comments I learned just as much as the video. I appreciate the sharing of knowledge.
Thanks!
Worth mentioning is the use of its hardness by the Osmiriod pen company to slow the wear in the tips of pen nibs. I remember the brand from my school days in the Sixties.
Yes I remember when they used osmium and iridium on the tips of pens decades ago. Not so much anymore :(
@@KickAssScience92Iridium is the preferred tipping material for fountain pen nibs
@@KickAssScience92I spotted an iridium tipped fountain pen in an office Depot in Washington State a few years back.
Wow that takes me back!! I was in secondary school from 1958 to 1963 and used an Osmiroid fountain pen the whole time. I remember using little bottles of Quink ink to fill the pen although I can't remember how I did it. There was a little lever on the side so I suppose I used that. There were two types of fountain pen available, the Parker pen and the Osmiroid. I liked the Osmirois because it had a selection of wide nibs for my Italic style handwriting.
@@patrickcorliss8878 Well, well, I also learned to write Italics around 1962 - 63, here in NZ. I was quite happy with it, but I believe all the parents thought our Headmaster was a bit odd and too progressive, what with his Classical music and Yoga, LOL!
The lever compressed a rubber bulb inside. You raised the lever, put the nib in the ink, dropped the lever and the bulb expanded to suck up the ink. Blotting paper after that!
You can grow crystal clusters like thus by putting osmium sponge, osmium tetroxide, and a tiny amount of iodine in a sealed quartz tube. Heat the osmium tetroxide/sponge side gently to get it to make vapor in the tube, heat the other end very strongly. The crystals will grow on the hot end. 😁
Osmium was also used to tip Gold Nibs used in Fountain pens decades ago. It was prized for its abrasion resistance when applied to just the tip of the gold nibs. It was fused to the gold nibs via a high voltage electrical arc.
Vapour deposition in vacuum.
It also has some interesting conductive and electromagnetic properties. MRI's have used magnets made partially with osmium.
This is why I love UA-cam - I learn something new every day! I didn’t know any of this about Osmium.
I remember Donny and Maria Osmium in the 1970s
Oh how fricking dumb can you get. It was Donny and Marie Osmium. 😂
“Return my treasures to me, and I myself will carry you through the gates of Valhalla. You shall ride eternal. Shiny, and chrome!”
Its use in TEM preparation involves using OsO4 solutions to stain tissue blocks. It is generally purchased inside sealed glass ampules as a clear fluid = a small amount of the material dissolved in water. The ampules are broken open and the fluid used immediately and then disposed of (disposal of such a toxic material is really dicey as well). This needs to be done in a fume hood or in some other way to isolate the gas. To show students how nasty the stuff is, and to be able to recognize it what was happening if some was accidentally spilled, a prof I once had, had us students stand across a room from a small amount (a few grams ) of an OsO4 solution in a small beaker placed in a fume hood, with the hood door open and the ventilation off. Within a few minutes, a strong but very odd, metallic taste occurred - mostly on the sides and back of the tongue which started to hurt, about at this time one's eyes also began to ache/hurt. A that point the beaker was covered, the fume hood cover closed and the hood started so as to remove the vapors. Windows were opened and fans started to ventilate the room. Recovery took about 5 minutes. OsO4 sublimates (evaporates into a vapor without going through a liquid form) easily and rapidly. While Osmium metal may be safe to handle, OsO4 is decidedly hazardous, as the material vaporizes out of a water solution easily, it is exceedingly poisonous and dangerous to work with. Its density is what makes it a good TEM stain, but every microscopist I have ever known to use the stuff treats it with the respect it deserves. The damn stuff is truly scary to work around...
I'm sure the exposure was low, but that's still ridiculous. I look back at grad school and sometimes wonder how I survived.
I had the opportunity to work with osmium when I took a class in Electron Microscopy. It had its own refrigerator, which turned completely black inside - just from one container. All work with the osmium had to be done inside of a fume hood, which also turned black from repeated exposure.
That was really interesting! Never even heard of Osmium before.
@@02ennuu-zg5tb Ha! Perhaps not the best student when younger. So, probably more accurate to say I don't remember hearing about it before. And definitely not with such a dose of danger!
@@02ennuu-zg5tb My chemistry classes never even had one explosion, much less danger-metal. 🤓
This showed up on my feed and I'm glad I watched it. Short but very informative. I enjoyed this. Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
Osmium actually makes a pretty good coating for the edges of blades to maintain sharpness. Osmitanium (osmium alloyed with titanium) is basically adamantium...but good luck making it with our present tech level!
Have you heard of osmiauride titaniumtantalide :)
I was once acquainted with a person who owns 1 liter-sized cube of Osmium as a trinket - 10x10x10 cm, it weights 22.6 kg, as Osmium should. You do NOT expect the weight of it, when you try to lift it. He told me it's safe to handle, "but please don't drop it". I assumed that it would be costly to repair if it got dents or something from hit after drop, but I didn't consider toxicity of it.
I asked him about the cost and it was in line of 30k USD - that was around 12-15 years ago, mind you.
Only the powdered form is toxic due to it forming OsO4. It is also brittle. In a solid cube form Osmium is safe.
Probably worth over 300K now!
With such a high melting point, that sounds like the perfect metal to make a heat shield for a spacecraft.
It is so heavy the spacecraft would never get off the ground.
I'm going to start buying some now, before it finds a use in the hyperspace industry.
A element with such a great heat resistance must have uses.
Immediately I think on high voltage switch which often are in danger of smelting when they are not closing fast enough (to prevent a early transmission through the air).
If a little bit of it off-gasses it can blind the whole neighborhood. I used to want to add some to my elements collection, until I learned about its toxic qualities. No thanks on all that.
for you chemistry nerds, the oxidation state of of osmium in OsO4 is +8 (crazy, rite?)
I really like its color.
It is pretty cool to look at :)
Yes , although i thought that Swann of Britain is the one who first used osmium in late 1800s 18 months or so prior to Edison carbon filament light bulb which wasn't really perfected for his patent and public release. The Edison carbon filament doped with rare earths like thorium and the other lanthanides used in gas mantles was a brilliant idea but fragile maybe. Edison did invent the carbon filament if he doesn't get credit for electric lamp .
Interesting. I read your closing disclaimer and I am wondering how element collectors actually go about collecting the elements? Since some are gases, some unstable, etc... I guess I'll do a search on that.
I have some cesium which has to be stored under argon gas inside lucite.
I collect metals, like my titanium sample and others.
11:45 pm West Coast time, Tuesday, 14 November 2023.
A Crazy Old Man who tries to learn something new every day, was absolutely intrigued. So much so that it sent me off find out more for 15 minutes before I go to bed. Thanks for the lesson!
Anytime :)
It's used in organic chemistry synthesis of other chemicals and compounds, too.
Alan Ruck was on an episode of Fringe called "Os" where he was conducting experiments on ex military with Osmium.
There were osmium phonograph needles. I always wondered what osmium was. Now I know.
I'm curious as to why larger chunks of Osmium don't oxidize whereas smaller ones do.
Osmium dust does have more net surface area than the large chunk and is exposed to more oxygen.
@@KickAssScience92 Like more hands at the atomic level pulling on a brick to pull it out of a wall.
when in big chunk it is oxidized already, when it breaks - it is fresh, not oxidized
Why does it not combine with oxygen except when finely divided? This wasn't explained. Also using it in alloys in electrical contacts seems like a bad idea because of the possibility of sparking and pitting slowly vaporizing the metal in the contact. Any contactor that has current will spark to some extent (which will pit the contact) unless you have a separate pre connection area with a resistor that pre charges the capacitors in the circuit you are connecting (known as an anti spark connector, basically it connects through the resistor first which causes a slow rather than an immediate rise in current before the contacts fully interface with each other)
Osmium dust does have more net surface area than the large chunk and is exposed to more oxygen. The volume to surface area ratio is great enough that osmium can release excess heat into its own interior, which does not contact the oxygen in the air.
who the fuck was like "k lemme just rub some osmium on my eye and see if i go blind"
Your video quality is super amazing, SUBSCRIBED!
Thanks!
@@KickAssScience92Wishing your channel great growth and success. There is much useful scientific knowledge for humanity
Interesting. The only other time I've heard the word "tetroxide" is for hypergolic rocket fuel oxidizer, "nitrogen tetroxide" It is some foul and deadly stuff.
Osmium is fine by itself but in dust form it is dangerous!
@@KickAssScience92 True, but even sugar, and wheat are explosive in dust form.
One Oxygen is ok.... 2 is perfect. 3 is not that bad.... but FOUR???? Aw HELL no.
This is gonna be a fun experiment to do in front of the whole school in the gym.
I'm telling !
Fascinating.., that's what they found in those mummified alien brains from Peru!
Yeah I heard about that. But the man who found the alien mummies is a known hoaxer. People like that dilute real research on the search for extraterrestrial life.
Thanks for uploading such wonderful facts about rare elements.
Thanks for watching!
I Knew osmium tetroxide was a compound of oxygen and osmium. But never knew what reaction would create it, until I saw the video :)
It would mainly form if osmium is in powdered form and exposed to the air.
Unless you heat osmium metal to around 1,000°F, it's not going to produce any osmium tetroxide. Even the powder isn't an efficient producer of the tetroxide.
@@The_OsmiumChannel True the amount would be small but I still would not have osmium powder laying around though :)
@@KickAssScience92Good morning! I have osimium ore. In ore it has 3 elements Os, Au, ir. And a few other elements but in very small proportions such as Pb, Cb. Do you have a formula to separate them? Thank you
This form of osmium isnt what causes the deadly gas, thats why you can handle it with your barehands and use it as jewelry
Only the powdered form of osmium is dangerous. I mentioned that in here. It can be used as jewelry in completely solid form.
@@KickAssScience92 And if it gets scuffed you can gently polish it with some sandpaper...
Id love jewelry made entirely out of it because of the color, but I'm too clumsy for something like that
First time viewer - and I'm going to subscribe. Some things I'd love to see you to have covered, since I didn't really know or think about Osmium until now. (1) You keep saying it's dangerous in powdered form and easily shattered... but don't specify why - I'm assuming the expanded surface area.. But what about -that- makes it bad? Is the oxidized form easily absorbed through the skin, or does it pick up a static charge making it worse than glitter to remove, or is is it just the gas it can give off? And if it's just the gas, how dangerous IS that gas? If a one gram bead costs $40, is smashing your bed going to yield enough gas if collected over time, to hurt you? Ok - that aside... why is it optimal for use in ball point pens? That's possibly the weirdest optimal use for a metal I've ever heard. I really wanted to know why it's used and how it was found to be the so good? And if it's safe in non-powdered form, then why were you able to find pictures of hands wrecked by "long term" exposure to it? People suck on the tips of ball point pens. People wear jewelry. And how did anyone manage long term exposure anyway - if it's found in parts per trillion in the crust and only 500kg is mined a year (I can't imagine any profitable mine getting this stuff out of the ground using people and their bare hands?) WHY is it even mined? Is it something found alongside something valuable? Would anyone ever make an "Osmium mine" if you can only get a few kilograms of the stuff and it's worth less than much easier to obtain materials? How do you obtain it - is it chemically precipitated, is whatever you're ACTUALLY mining melted down and this stuff with it's higher melting point is concentrated in the slag? .... I'm only stopping with my questions because I have to go to work so BIG TLDR: Good video, looking forward to more, but please if you find something odd about what you're talking about, go into some of the curous details about that oddity. I'm now looking at my large bag of ball point pens and wondering if I have a curiosity, hazardous waste, or an opportunity to freely collect some osmium. :P
Thanks for the comment and suggestions. Osmium is a byproduct of nickel and copper mining mainly from Russia and S Africa. When they electrorefine copper the minor metals like osmium, iridium and other PGMS settle out. The thing is the metal itself has very little industry use. Osmium was alloyed with iridium for pen tips many years ago. Other than that there is very little use for the metal itself. Now the main use of pure osmium metal is for element collectors and jewelry hence its low price per oz. There are a number of stores that sell osmium jewelry as it is a pretty blue metal (ex. oslery.com/en). Osmium metal chunks/beads by itself can be handled safely. It is the powder form (like the size of flour grains) that is very dangerous as there is more surface area to form poisonous osmium tetroxide. Although osmium tetroxide is dangerous it is used in the medical industry to treat arthritis with a light solution of OsO4 injected into the knees. Osmium tetroxide can cause blindness if it gets into the eyes. Osmium tetroxide must be stored in glass in a cold environment as it will penetrate plastic. By the way you can go to Luciteria.com to buy osmium 1 gram beads for $45 USD :)
It my understanding is the that Osmium is used as a catalyst for the Haber-Bosch process. Making food more abundant and war more deadly.
Found a large clump of this in my backyard while gardening. It now sit’s on my coffee table in the lounge room. Very pretty to look at and makes a great talking piece
I don't think you found a clump of osmium in your backyard unless someone put it there :)
What on earth makes you think it’s Osmium? Highly unlikely. It’s probably Galena. Galena is mostly lead, and has a very shiny surface when broken.
@@madmattdigs9518 Galena is what I thought about when I saw the Osmium crystals, especially the small chunks at the base.
Cool beans. I found an alien space ship in my back yard. Little green men came out and said "Crazy Hair is right, we DID build the pyramids!! .... PSYCH!!" Then they got back in and took off. My therapist doesn't believe me. She thinks they definitely built the pyramids. She says piling stones on top of one another is some advanced alien sh*t, there's no other explanation.
@@madmattdigs9518 It’s looks identical to the thumbnail. I thought it was Galena until I watched this. The thumbnail is what got my attention. Anyway it’s very pretty and looks amazing. Friends have said the same.
Fittingly unsettling background theme 😂
ever thought about exposing osmium to compressed hydrogen . the chlorine smell is from electrolysis. caused by the friction in density . the transfer of electrons to insulate the mass from the difference. oxidation.
ahhh i love videos like these soaking up information thankyou so much
The Slammers in David Drakes novels used Osmium projectiles in their weapons.
I enjoyed this video. My only recommendation for improvement would be, for the eerie music, use a theremin next time.
Thanks for the suggestion :)
So you're telling me that my Osmium armor set in Cabal Online is health hazard?
As long as it's solid, it's inert, hence perfectly safe. It's just silly to use as armour as it's awfully heavy and shit-expensive.
Only the osmium dust is a problem :)
Osmium is the future of electronics and thruster use. Imagine gaseous metals in electronic processors, thruster cones that withstand extreme temp.
Human: I'm gonna smash and brake you into tiny little pieces and show you that just because you are the densest doesn't mean that you're unbreakable.
Osmium: If you'll break me, I'll make a poisonous gas and mess up your skin.
Humen: .... alright, no need to start a war. we cool right. Here's a cushioned case for you to comfortably rest with no risk of breaking, peace?
Osmium: peace.
And that's how peace was achieved with Osmium the world rarest precarious and deadly metal.
This is dangerous if the "wrong person" gets their hands on it.
Richard Osmium is the Metalist comedian to ever come out of Essex 😅
Dicky Osmium
Osmic acid (osmium tetroxide) has been used (unlicensed) by rheumatologists to treat rheumatoid arthritis of the knee. It is injected into the synovial joint. The treatment room should have good ventilation with open windows. Any unused solution in the ampoules, syringes and needles are immersed in a jar of oil ( e.g. arachis oil) for disposal as even the vapour is toxic. The data sheet warns that there is a danger that the vapour can be absorbed into the cornea and the person will see rings in their vision for about two weeks. All ''nasty stuff'' I remember from my working days.
Real ballers buy the 1 inch cube of osmium.
This baller is going to not only get a cube of osmium one day but some bullion too :)
@@KickAssScience92 I got the 1cm Cube of osmium, it's pretty fascinating to hold it in one hand and magnesium in the other.
@@jerensteffen Osmium is a definitely a fascinating metal for sure. Did you get your cube from Luciteria? They have the 10 gm cubes for sale for just over $1000.
@@KickAssScience92 Yeah, I got it from Luciteria, great company.
A common attempt at fraud was to put tungsten into gold because of how close it was to the weight of gold and try to pass it off. Imagine putting tungsten and osmium into gold to perfectly match the weight and volume to commit fraud. THAT would be hard to detect.
Osmium is too expensive and not cost effective to fake gold. You are right, tungsten is the only metal that weighs almost the same as gold. Only 0.04 gram difference in density. The thing is fraudsters use tungsten to fake gold bars larger than an ounce. It is not cost effective to fake a 1 gram gold bar. A one gram gold bar will bend easily(gold can be scratched with a fingernail) but a tungsten gold plated bar would be difficult to bend. Fraudsters are less likely to use tungsten in bars and coins that weigh less than an ounce, which is why I prefer small gold bars not large. The fraudster's real money is putting tungsten in large 100 oz or larger bars. One thing about tungsten is that it has the highest melting point of the metallic elements. The metal would need to be sintered so the the density may be less. Any fake one ounce tungsten gold plated coins/bars would have a lower density due to sintering and would stand out.
Why doesn’t it react unless finely divided? At the molecular level, how does an O2 next to an Os molecule know whether it’s allowed to react?
More surface area for oxygen to react when finely divided.
I wonder if a diosmium decaoxide could be used a protonophore in redox catalyst reactions🎉
Metal Men comic books had an Osmium man.
Also the densest element.
Yes it is. It used to be a toss up between iridium and osmium but osmium won by 0.03 grams!
Dope video dude
Thanks!
make science spooky again
This is so cool to know. I’ve been handling osmium for years without knowing these facts. By handling, I do mean it’s the main ore used in the Mekanism mod for Minecraft!! 😉
Awesome info. Thank you
Anytime!
The densest and deadliest material in the universe being used to make pens
Deadliest precious metal :)
Is this what the COG coated bayonets with before the chain saws were developed for the Mk2 lancers...
At what size exactly does it change from being a 'small marble' to 'deadly powder'? What if the marble was half as big? A quarter? A tenth....
*human
"Yeah?! but can we burn it?"
Adamatium is far the friendliest adaptable metal in human body in medical field.
LOL! I got some vibranium and unobtainium to sell :)
Our company used to make a osmium solution that was then used to produce eye drops, because it widens the pupills so the doctor can properly look inside ...
The rarest element is unobtanium (Un). It’s so rare it’s not even on the periodic table.
Wow that's so cheap for a precious metal! I'd love a whole cube.
The cheapest PGM metal is debatable. Either ruthenium or osmium. Osmium:400-800 USD per oz, Iridium over 4660 US per oz, Rhodium: 4100 USD per oz, Palladium: 900 USD per oz, Ruthenium 500 USD per oz, Platinum 880 USD per oz.
I was at a OSMIUM concert last month.. 😅
I have heard of that band before. The lead singer sounds very similar to Max Cavalera of Sepultura. Osmium is a the heaviest metal and Osmium is a heavy metal band, nice combo and a cool name. My favorite metal bands are Slayer, Megadeth, Opeth, Amon Amarth, Clutch, Paradise Lost, Sepultura (80's and 90's were their best years with Arise and Beneath the Remains) Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera.
My dad has a quarter ounce piece of that he got in California 1960s mining
It is a pretty cool metal though!
How about crushed beryllium?
Very interesting ❤👍
Oh man bullets made of or capped with osmium would be terrifying
Solid osmium by itself is ok. It is the osmium dust you have to worry about.
@@KickAssScience92 Exactly! Pre flake it and bind solid with epoxy, like they do with frangible bullets, only osmium instead of coper.
I'm guessing osmium is pretty soft?
I used OSo4 for electron microscopy for my degree in microbiology.
Grats on not dying or going blind!
I’m going to drop my nemesis in a barrel of Osmium dust, it’s settled.
Pen balls made of precious metal? Wow!
If it can take high temperatures. Maybe we can use it in turbine blades for jet engines. Just got to figure out how to get around a few problems I guess.
Rhenium is usually alloyed for jet engine turbine blades. The thing is osmium does not have that much commercial use.
higher firing temperatures increase the efficiency of turbine engines, but also create more NOx so there is a practical limit to the firing temps based on air emission regulations.
That was cool Thanks for the info
Thanks!!
It grows in the same pattern of Quartz clusters!! I wonder what the vibrational frequency of Osmium could be. Someone help me out?
It is used to make helicopter counter weights.
T1000 approves of this video 😂🎉
Sounds like a good investment
Only if you are going to do cool things with it other than that the price doesn't change :)
Very interesting stuff! Is there a threshold for how small a piece of Osmium needs to be to react with Oxygen?
There is more surface area in dust form osmium than a large chunk of osmium for OsO4 to form. Powdered osmium is pyrophoric and can heat up easier whereas a large chunk transfers any heat into the metal itself preventing any chain reaction for OsO4 to form.
@@KickAssScience92 Neat. Thanks so much for the reply!
@@Will_Negs Anytime!
3:14 Isn't silver the cheapest precious metal, at around $20 per oz?
Yes silver is the cheapest precious metal at currently 23 USD per Oz.
5491°F is hotter than hell The energy required to get the furnace that hot is off the charts you damn you need a nuclear reactor
So if you threw a chunk of osmium would that cause it to shatter into dust?
Don't let Bill Gates know about this death metal.
Osmium skin!!! No... No... That's just lymphoma.
I want an Osmium chain
I have 1 Oz of Osmium (from RWMM). Looking for 1 Oz of Iridium to complete my collection, but it’s over 6-frikkin-thousand-dollaz!!! 💰💰💰
The base price of iridium is $5000 alone. Any one ounce bar will 20% over spot price