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A journey through the periodic table of elements with chemistry professor Allan Blackman, from AUT, and Alison Ballance
Zirconium is a shape-shifting tough cookie, that is a tale of gemstones, medical implants and nuclear reactors, says Allan Blackman from AUT...
Zinc is a very useful metal that turns up in everything from sunscreen to paint, & galvanised metals to cereals, as well as brass instrument...
Yttrium is yet another element named after the village of Ytterby and is important in the development of high temperature superconductors, s...
Ytterbium is yet another lanthanoid named after the Swedish village of Ytterby, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 95 of Elemental. Ytterbium is...
Xenon is a noble gas that turns up in various lights, gets used in xenon ion propulsion systems for spacecraft & plays a key role in the sea...
Vanadium makes steel stronger & lighter, is being used in what will be the world's largest battery, and sea squirts are full of it, says Pro...
Named after the planet Uranus & associated with Hiroshima & nuclear bombs, uranium is the highest-numbered element found naturally in signif...
Tungsten's very high melting point made it an ideal filament for incandescent light bulbs, & as it is in some enzymes it is the heaviest ele...
Titanium is light, strong, corrosion resistant & is used to repair broken limbs as it is able to get integrated into the bone, says Allan Bl...
The element tin turns up in all sorts of alloys, but tin cans are - mostly - not made from tin, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT, in ep 89...
Isolating the element thulium was a truly laborious process that took many years, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 88 of Elemental. I...
Named after Thor, the Norse God of Thunder, thorium could provide a cleaner source of nuclear power in the future, says Prof Allan Blackman...
Thallium is most famous for some infamous poisoned family cases & its appearance in an Agatha Christie novel solved a medical mystery, says...
A discovery from the chemically prolific Swedish village of Ytterby, terbium produced the green on old TV sets & adds security to Euro notes...
Tellurium is a metalloid often found with gold and the US town Telluride is named after it, says Prof Allan Blackman, in ep 84 of Elemental....
Technetium was the first element on the periodic table to be synthesised. It is rare, radioactive and has only a few uses, says Prof Allan B...
The metal tantalum is usually found with the element niobium, has a very high melting point but is a 'conflict mineral', says Prof Allan Bla...
Sulfur is responsible for some very bad smells, is the number one industrial chemical and is also an essential element, says Prof Allan Blac...
Named after a Scottish town, strontium can be highly radioactive & glow-in-the-dark, but also used in toothpaste, says Prof Allan Blackman f...
Sodium is vital for life & usually found in combinaton with other more interesting elements, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 79 of Elemental....
Silver is widely used in jewellery, has interesting light sensitive abilities and has antimicrobial properties, says Prof Allan Blackman fro...
Silicon is a blockbuster metalloid with many uses, from glass to computer chips & bathroom sealants, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep...
New Zealand soils lack the vital element selenium, which also used to be important in photocopiers and bathroom plumbing, says Prof Allan Bl...
Predicted by Mendeleev & useful for alloying with aluminium, scandium was involved in a famous cricket scandal, says AUT's Allan Blackman in...
Samarium magnets are used in headphones & guitar pickups, and samarium was the first element named after a real person, says Prof Allan Blac...
Ruthenium is a 'sort of' precious metal that is a useful catalyst and alloy. It is toxic and smells like ozone, says Allan Blackman from AUT...
Rubidium is a reactive metal with few uses, named 'deepest red' due to its beautiful red spectral lines, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep...
Rhodium is an expensive precious metal that is used in catalytic convertors, to make the Parkinson's drug L-DOPA, create shiny jewellery and...
Named after the Rhine river, rhenium is a metal with very high boiling and melting points, and it was the last naturally occuring, non-radio...
The radioactive gas radon can be a risk in the basements of stone houses and used to, erroneously, be touted for its health benefits, says P...
Radium was famously found by the Curies, and was once widely used in face creams, drinks and luminous watch dials, despite being highly radi...
Protactinium is a rare, radioactive element that has no uses and may be the most boring element, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 67...
Despite its gruesome mythical name, the radioactive element promethium has no particular claim to fame, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT in...
Praseodymium is a metal wirh the second longest name on the periodic table and not many uses, says Prof Alan Blackman from AUT in ep 65 of E...
From levitating burnt buttocks, to excitable nerves and sure-to-rise baking, potassium is highly reactive and vital to life, says Prof Allan...
Polonium will be forever linked with the names Curie and Litvinenko and has negligible desirable features, says Prof Allan Blackman in ep 63...
A radioactive heavyweight associated with nuclear bombs & power, which is powering the Voyager spacecraft, says Prof Allan Blackman from AUT...
Platinum is useful in catalytic convertors, is used to treat testicular cancer and will be useful in hydrogen fuel cells, says Prof Allan Bl...
Phosphorus, chemical symbol P, was first isolated as an element from thousands of litres of urine. Also found in guano, aka bird poo. Allan...
Palladium is a pricey precious metal most commonly used in catalytic convertors on car exhausts, says AUT's Allan Blackman in ep 59 of Eleme...
Oxygen is very friendly with other chemical elements & very helpful for life on Earth, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 58 of Elemental. O...
Osmium is extremely rare and expensive. It is the densest chemical element, rivals diamond as being the least compressible of all known subs...
Most important biological molecules contain nitrogen, even though it takes lots of energy to make or break its chemical bonds, says Allan Bl...
Niobium is a metal that is useful at both very high temperatures, as in jet engines, and very low temperatures as a superconductor, says All...
The chemical element nickel is named after a German word for Satan or the Devil, but nickel is now more usually thought of as a North Americ...
There are no known compounds of the noble gas neon, which does however produce the brilliant crimson of red - and only red - neon lights. Ep...
Neodydmium magnets include the strongest permanent magnets known and are found in devices like speakers & headphones, says chemistry profess...
The Elemental podcast has inspired Prof Allan Blackman from AUT and Dr Rebecca Jelley from the University of Auckland, to publish a paper in...
Molybdenum has an essential role as a catalyst at microbial and industrial scales and is an important element in enzymes, says Prof Allan Bl...
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, says Allan Blackman in ep 49 of Elemental. Mercury is...