Antimony

What do flame retardants, eye cosmetics and Mozart have in common?
Antimony crystal, 2 grams, 1 cm.
Image: Unknown (Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 Generic license.)

This week's element, antimony, is not as familiar to the public as some of the others we've met during the course of this series. Its symbol, Sb, comes from the Latin name for this element, stibium, and its atomic number is 51. As you can see in the above image, antimony is a lustrous grey metal. It is often found in the company of sulfur, which it bonds tightly, and the most common source for antimony is the sulfurous mineral, stibnite (Sb2S3).

Before I tell you more about antimony, I just have to show this picture of stibnite to you because I think it's such a beautiful mineral:

Stibnite, at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Image: Pepperedjane. Released into the public domain [boulderise].

Antimony has no known biological role, but it is a potent toxin, with effects that are similar to arsenic poisoning. When ingested, antimony strongly bonds to sulfur-containing enzymes, thereby inactivating them. Antimony is even more toxic when inhaled as the gas, stibine, SbH3. Poisoning by antimony ingestion manifests as gastric distress, and large doses cause vomiting, and kidney and liver damage, followed by death a few days later.

Victorian doctors were aware of this property of antimony and used it to rid themselves of unwanted wives, girlfriends and relatives. Despite the lack of modern diagnostic technology, at least several men were executed for these crimes.

Perhaps the most famous victim of antimony poisoning is the composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As popularised by the 1984 film, Amadaeus, some people thought he was a victim of poisoning at the hand of rival composer, Antonio Salieri, although historians don't give this hypothesis any credence. In fact, it is far more likely that Mozart was poisoned by his doctors. A heavy drinker, Mozart was known to also overindulge in the popular hangover cure of the day that contains antimony, tartar emetic, C4H4KO7Sb, which was provided by his doctors.

That said, antimony-containing compounds were used as anti-parasitic medications to treat both humans and animals for schistosomiasis, filariasis and leishmaniasis. The dosages used were high enough to kill the parasites but not high enough to kill the host. But these days, safer preparations are used, so antimony is only used to treat leishmaniasis.

All that said, antimony has been known since ancient times when it was used as an eye cosmetic in Egypt. It even has its own Egyptian hieroglyph:

Antimony has a number of industrial uses. Most of the world's purified antimony is used as a flame retardant, but it also is alloyed with lead for use in batteries, bearings and solders.

Here's our favourite chemistry professor, telling us more about the uses of antimony:

Visit PeriodicVideos's YouTube channel [video link].

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Video journalist Brady Haran is the man with the camera and the University of Nottingham is the place with the chemists. You can follow Brady on twitter @periodicvideos and the University of Nottingham on twitter @UniNottingham

You've already met these elements:

Tin: Sn, atomic number 50
Indium: In, atomic number 49
Cadmium: Cd, atomic number 48
Silver: Ag, atomic number 47
Palladium: Pd, atomic number 46
Rhodium: Rh, atomic number 45
Ruthenium: Ru, atomic number 44
Technetium: Tc, atomic number 43
Molybdenum: Mo, atomic number 42
Niobium: Ni, atomic number 41
Zirconium: Zr, atomic number 40
Yttrium: Y, atomic number 39
Strontium: Sr, atomic number 38
Rubidium: Rr, atomic number 37
Krypton: Kr, atomic number 36
Bromine: Br, atomic number 35
Selenium: Se, atomic number 34
Arsenic: As, atomic number 33
Germanium: Ge, atomic number 32
Gallium: Ga, atomic number 31
Zinc: Zn, atomic number 30
Copper: Cu, atomic number 29
Nickel: Ni, atomic number 28
Cobalt: Co, atomic number 27
Iron: Fe, atomic number 26
Manganese: Mn, atomic number 25
Chromium: Cr, atomic number 24
Vanadium: V, atomic number 23
Titanium: Ti, atomic number 22
Scandium: Sc, atomic number 21
Calcium: Ca, atomic number 20
Potassium: K, atomic number 19
Argon: Ar, atomic number 18
Chlorine: Cl, atomic number 17
Sulfur: S, atomic number 16
Phosphorus: P, atomic number 15
Silicon: Si, atomic number 14
Aluminium: Al, atomic number 13
Magnesium: Mg, atomic number 12
Sodium: Na, atomic number 11
Neon: Ne, atomic number 10
Fluorine: F, atomic number 9
Oxygen: O, atomic number 8
Nitrogen: N, atomic number 7
Carbon: C, atomic number 6
Boron: B, atomic number 5
Beryllium: Be, atomic number 4
Lithium: Li, atomic number 3
Helium: He, atomic number 2
Hydrogen: H, atomic number 1

Here's a wonderful interactive Periodic Table of the Elements that is just really really fun to play with!

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Every week, Guardian science blogger GrrlScientist introduces a new chemical element, with help from The Periodic Table of Videos – a collaboration between the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry and video journalist Brady Haran