MainĪntimony is used to increase the hardness of alloys, with lead alloys for batteries, with lead/copper/tin alloys for machine bearings. Number of Protons/Electrons in Antimony: 51Īntimony is a silvery-white brittle solid found in the earth's crust, estimates of the amount of antimony in the crust are between 0.2 and 0.5 ppm.Īlthough antimony resembles a metal it has poor electircal and conductive properties and does not react chemically like a metal and is classified as semi-metallic.Īntimony ores are mined and then mixed with other metals to form antimony alloys or combined with oxygen to form antimony oxide.
Antimony definition plus#
anti plus monos - "a metal not found alone") antimony was first recognized in compounds and was recorded as a metal at the beginning of the 17th century and possibly prior to this date. An emerging application is the use of antimony in microelectronics.(Gr. Antimony compounds are prominent additives for chlorine- and bromine-containing fire retardants found in many commercial and domestic products. Alloying lead and tin with antimony improves the properties of the alloys which are used in solders, bullets and plain bearings. The largest applications for metallic antimony are as alloying material for lead and tin and for lead antimony plates in lead-acid batteries.
The industrial methods to produce antimony are roasting and subsequent carbothermal reduction or direct reduction of stibnite with iron. It was established to be an element around the 17th century.įor some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan. Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were used for cosmetics metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead.
A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite. The experiment, however, succeeded so ill, that they all died of it and the medicine was thenceforward called antimoine antimonk.įreebase (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:Īntimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb and atomic number 51. The reason of its modern denomination is referred to Basil Valentine, a German monk who, as the tradition relates, having thrown some of it to the hogs, observed, that, after it had purged them heartily, they immediately fattened and therefore, he imagined, his fellow monks would be the better for a like dose. Ephraim ChambersĮtymology: The stibium of the ancients, by the Greeks called στίμμι. It had no place in medicine before the fourteenth century and was generally neglected, till Paracelsus brought it into esteem, in the beginning of the sixteenth century but much mischief was done by it, till the proper methods of preparing it were, after a long course of experiments, discovered. In pharmacy it is used under various forms, and with various intentions, chiefly as an emetick. It is a general help in the melting of metals, and especially in casting of cannon balls. It is mingled with tin, to make it more hard, white, and sound and with lead, in the casting of printers letters, to render them more smooth and firm. It makes a part in bell metal and renders the sound more clear. It is a common ingredient in speculums, or burning concaves serving to give them a finer polish. It destroys and dissipates all metals fused with it, except gold and is therefore useful in refining. Of these cones the top is the purest part, and the base the foulest. When dug out of the earth, it is put into large crucibles, fused by a violent fire, and then poured into cones, which make the crude antimony of the shops. It fuses in the fire, though with some difficulty and dissolves more easily in water. Sometimes veins of a red or golden colour are intermixed, which is called male antimony that without them being denominated female antimony.
Antimony definition full#
Its texture is full of little shining veins or threads, like needles brittle as glass. It is found in clods or stones of several sizes, bearing a near resemblance to black lead, only being lighter and harder.
It has also its own mines in Hungary, Germany, and France. Mines of all metals afford it but chiefly those of silver and lead that in gold mines is reckoned best. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (0.00 / 0 votes) Rate this definition:Īntimony is a mineral substance, of a metalline nature, having all the seeming characters of a real metal, except malleability and may be called a semimetal, being a fossile glebe of some undetermined metal, combined with a sulphurous and stony substance.
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