Talk:Beryllium/Archive 1

Information Sources
Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Beryllium. Additional text was taken directly from USGS Beryllium Statistics and Information. Other information was obtained from the sources listed on the main page but was reformatted and converted into SI units. --

Talk
- Talk associated with element table development has been moved to Talk:WikiProject Elements - What's the source for this information? Obviously, the information itself isn't copyrighted. But does that mean that entire factbooks can be copied wholesale? An interesting question.

(Not a legal opinion): To date, facts or collections of facts can't be copyrighted, although there are pernicious efforts to change this. However, the presentation of the facts can be. A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted. People have copyrighted facsimile copies of out of copyright books, on the basis of the slight changes that reprinting introduces, but I don't know how successful such attempts are.

"A particular list of the properties of Beryllium, in a particular order, might well be copyrighted." In that case, I have a concern that the present Beryllium and other similar-formatted articles are copyrighted.

A more educated legal opinion: the governing authority is USSC Feist v. Rural, a case of one phone directory copying numbers from another. In that case, the court affirmed the doctrine that data itself is beyond copyright and dismissed the case. What copyright covers, they said, is the act of creativity, which can be expressed in terms of selecting which data to express, organizing the data a certain way, or wording it a certain way. In the case of phone book entries, it was ruled that an alphabetical list was about as uncreative as it gets, and so no copyright applied. But in the instant case here, I think we may want to come up with a format of our own (which can't be any worse than the one there any way) and just plug the data into it. This could be done programmatically, though, from the existing text. It's OK to *use* copyrighted material to produce non-infringing material.

Yeah, I think this isn't that hard to deal with. We can make some modifications to this to be extra-safe.

What is the original source? Perhaps someone can go to another source and confirm the information and add a few more tidbits.

It's just facts, and if someone wants to sue us over something like this, then it will just be good publicity for us and bad publicity for them. (And, by the way, since it is my money at stake, I'm the only one who gets to decide about these risks.) ;-) --Jimbo Wales - I've added in some slightly edited berylliosis info taken from the CDC web site. Their copyright notice basically says that if you don't need to login or use a password to see apage, than you're free to use what's on the page. As its a US government site, I assume that means there are no copyright problems about this. Revert the page if I'm wrong -- Malcolm Farmer
 * Looks fine to me. Thanks for the addition! You needn't worry about the copyright issue - I plan on integrating some OSHA stuff in the same section, which requires me to simplify and rewrite the CDC info anyway -- besides, it probably is public domain and even if it wasn't it would be difficult to defend a copyright on such a small amount of text (especially since it almost certainly was paid for by Joe and Jane Public). Cheers! --User:maveric149

-In the CRC handbook the spin of EE4BE8 is given as zero (as are all EE's), then with an addition the spin of EO4Be9 is given as -3/2. Then with an additional proton, the spin of OO5B10 is given as +3. Is there an explanation for this? WFPMWFPM (talk) 04:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Mega-annum
Cosmogenic Be-10 thereby accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.5 million years -- Ma) permits a long residence time before decaying to Be-9.

What does "Ma" mean in this context? I'm assuming not mother, which is where I just redirected ma...


 * At one time just the Ma was there without the "million years" bit. Ma is shorthand for mega-annum which is Latin for million year. You might also come across Ga which is short for giga-annum. --mav

Berylliosis
I'm quite curious; is there a basic mechanism for berylliosis that is relatively easy to understand or explain, like the mechanism for CO poisoning (subsitution of CO for O2 in respiration), that is relatively easy to explain?--McDogm 03:25, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Featured article
I am impressed with this article and suggest we should promote it as a FAC. Any comments?--Light current 11:31, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

10Be deposition
I don't know where the information regarding deposition of 10Be through it's solubility in rainwater comes from, but as far as I know, the main route for 10Be (and 7Be) to be extracted from the atmosphere is through scavenging by sulfate aerosols - predominantly in the stratosphere (not much rain there!). (Lal and Peters, 1967). Sulfate aerosols are also soluble and wet deposition (through clouds and rain) is a dominant mechanism for sulfate removal, but there is a significant component of dry deposition - particularly in very dry conditions (ice sheets etc.).
 * I was about to mention that normal rainfall has a pH of 5.3. Most rainwater does not have a pH of 5.0 or less, so the statement of "... and most rainwater has a pH less than 5 ..." that is currently in the article is incorrect.
 * Outside of the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and eastern China, there are very few places that see rain with a pH of 5.0 or less. Even in the United States, most of the landmass receives rain that is above a pH of 5.  (A map of the lower 48 states: http://nadp.sws.uiuc.edu/isopleths/maps2006/2006Maps.pdf.)  In Europe, the area that sees pH of 5.0 or less is roughly a triangular area that is bounded by Britain, Southern Sweden, Austria, and Northern Italy.

great site
thanks this helped so so much with my science report on beryllium —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.77.242.144 (talk • contribs).

Cost
I heard every element has a cost. Anybody know how much Beryllium costs? (68.205.59.91)
 * Added. Femto 15:18, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

jewelry bit removed from article
Removed from article:
 * Beryllium ore, mined in the west desert of Utah, is prized by jewelry makers for its unique patterning.  Also known as "opal flourite," the material can be worked into purple (and other color patterned) jewelry.  The ore is known also by the jewelry and gem community as "tiffany stone," a name that references the colorful brecciated patterns that occur in the material.  The material is difficult to come by as mining companies not sell it for jewelry purposes but crush the ore into powder.

Seems this doesn't fit here. Should maybe be placed in one of the beryllium mineral pages - whichever one it is referring to, chrysoberyl? ... opal fluorite and tiffany stone don't mean anything to me. Vsmith 01:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Elimination
I do not see anything here which indicates if Beryllium eliminated over time, is it? Jokem 05:11, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Speed of sound
There are two seemingly equal conditions for speed of sound measurements, yet there are two distinct results. What gives? Slidersv 20:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have no idea. I could reference the 12870 m/sec figure (wow, mach 37.5, faster than Earth escape v), so I deleted the other, which seems to be corrupted somehow. What does the "n" mean?  S  B Harris 02:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protected for a month
Due to the nearly daily IP address vandalism, I have applied semi-protection to the article for a month. If this is causing you problems or you object, feel free to discuss here or on my talk page, or bring it up with any other Wikipedia administrator for review. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 02:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

chlorine —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.152.195 (talk) 23:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Have a question
Where does Beryllium get its name from????????/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.130.185 (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * See List of chemical element name etymologies. --Itub (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Beryllium falls slower in a vacuum?
In 1999, my chemistry professor told me that Beryllium falls slower in a vacuum than other elements. I found this interesting and over the years have tried to find more information on this. Has anyone have any further information pro or con?Septagram (talk) 03:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That is not true. In a vacuum, Beryllium falls at the same rate as any other form of matter. Emok (talk) 13:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Beryllium-10
Article is fully protected. Please insert link to Beryllium-10 and clear corresponding paragraph. The diagram is not a good example for relation of solar activity / cosmic ray and Be-10 concentration: high activity should give a low Be-10 production rate. Tubas-en (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Some summary info should be left on the main page per WP:SS. Please note the inverted scale for the Be-10; this figure is correct, as it actually does show less Be-10 with higher solar activity. I'll note the funny scale and use it for the Be-10 article also. Welcome to Wikipedia! S  B Harris 00:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You are right about the scale! In my opinion the summary is too extended and the diagram should be placed in Be-10 only. Tubas-en (talk) 19:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Elasticity modulus
The article states: "The modulus of elasticity of beryllium is approximately a third greater than that of steel" is unclear and misleading. Steel's modulus is 207 GPa (30 million psi); Be's modulus is 316 GPa (45 million psi). To me, this means Be's modulus is 50% greater than steel's, not "a third greater" since steel is the reference value in the sentence. 66.249.100.228 (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. "50% greater" is unambiguous, and correct. Since there's two of us, I'll be bold and change it. S  B Harris 20:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Typo
In the 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence, beryllium is misspelled as beryliium: Notable gemstones which contain beryliium include ... 98.164.200.16 (talk) 00:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! Fixed. Materialscientist (talk) 00:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

In the Applications section, Radiation windows subsection, sentence 2 misspells artifacts. Xiterion (talk) 22:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oxford dictionary gives artifacts and artefacts as equivalent. Is it a mistake ? Materialscientist (talk) 22:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Beryllium concentration in the earth crust: at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust are other values, not 4-6 ppm. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.80.119.164 (talk) 20:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Berylliosis
The page is fully locked, but I have a reference for under "Toxicity". Can an editor please add it? The reference supports the statement that berylliosis (aka, chronic beryllium disease) occurred in the fluorescent lamp industry, which caused beryllium to be removed from that industry. The ref is a book chapter, specifically pp 30-33: Breslin AJ. "Exposures and Patterns of Disease in the Beryllium Industry". Chap. 3 in Beryllium: Its Industrial Hygiene Aspects; HE Stokinger, Ed. New York: Academic Press, 1966. Zenithcity (talk) 02:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Added, thank you. Materialscientist (talk) 03:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Add link to Electron Capture in section 2.2?
While reading through section 2.2 (nuclear characteristics) I didn't know what decay by electron capture (in the part about 7Be) was, and had to search for the appropriate article. Thought it might be worth linking straight to Electron capture rather than just having the plain text. W.stanovsky (talk) 18:51, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Done Welcome and thanks for contributing to this article. Celestra (talk) 20:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Untitled
Be 7 decays with electron capture Chemical engineering N magazine says that 7Be can be kept from decaying or switched to radioactive mode with an electron plasma  absence of electrons causes halted decay  where does the probability go  This novel to me mode of switchable radioactivity goes well with the article  I mean you could have a near critical mass that would go critical if you switched the power off on the ionized nondecaying Be plasma to create a bomb that goes off absent functioning mechanisms    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.237.215.179 (talk) 23:05, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Truss elements
editsemiprotected Please add Beryllium to Category:Truss elements. Attinio (talk) 04:32, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I found no credible source for Truss element and I would not add the category.--Stone (talk) 07:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Category deleted.   Set Sail   For The   Seven Seas    230° 15' 15" NET    15:21, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Poisson Ratio of Beryllium
The poisson ratio (ν) for beryllium varies from 0.028~0.032. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.49.210.180 (talk) 16:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Occurence

 * SPOR MOUNTAIN USGS
 * BERYLLIUM USGS
 * BERYLLIUM By Brian W. Jaskula

What I read from all the ref is that the us holds 65% of the world reserves in Gold Hill, Utah and Spor Mountain, Utah and the Seward Peninsula, Alaska. The US produced 88% of the world production in 2008 and china 10%. Other producers are not existing or hide their production like China and Russia (Stockpile of the USSR). The only mined ore is bertranite in the US. I will try to get it into the article soon. --Stone (talk) 21:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

What is the correct melting point
The melting point of Berryllium is in many places reported as 1278±5 º C and many other places as 1287±5 º C The introduction paragraph says 1278C but the information box says 1287C.

In an article:

Journal of Chemical Health and Safety Volume 15, Issue 4, July-August 2008, Pages 26-45 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jchas.2007.12.003

I found a chart: Cited Physical Properties of Beryllium Metal: Melting point 1,278; 1,287; 1,284; 1,283

So I think 1287 is correct and would change it myself but the Wikipedia article appears in a June 20 2010 article: column http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/ by Errol Morris on what we know and don't know. (As an example that he did not know the melting point, then looked on Wikipedia, so now he knows) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gentlemath (talk • contribs) 02:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and changed it --Gentlemath (talk) 18:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Origin of beryllium-9
No mention is made of the how the stable beryllium-9 in the universe was created. What I have read in casual articles that most of it is from spallation by cosmic rays, but some, I don't know how much, was formed in the big bang from the fusion of lithium-7 and deuterium. I can't find suitable references for this information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.4.254.88 (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * might help. standard big bang nucleosynthesis (SBBN) is the word to search for. this one is also good.  is a review but restricted.--Stone (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You might note that (Except for 7Nitrogen) all the other low Odd Z elements have the majority of their stable isotopes with the A=2Z+1 configuration. This is the opposite of the even Z elements who have a majority in the A=2Z configuration. This argues in favor of the necessity for a balanced configuration of the neutrons in these small atoms as well as for a process where the neutrons can be accumulated to result in the balance.WFPM (talk) 20:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I have edited the title of this section of the talk page to reflect the initial question. A quick read of the article and its talk page does not reveal the origin of beryllium-9 (as pointed out in this section), while lots of information is given on all other isotopes. Since it is by far the most stable element, I think this essential information is missing. I would venture that beryllium-9 comes about by a decay route from one of its isotopes or another unstable isotope. I am no expert, but if any expert reads this and puts in the obvious answer in the article this will greatly help the general reader, I am sure.Nrlsouza (talk) 11:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting points in lead section
"The toxicity of beryllium and its salts varies greatly from person to person, and elements of its pathology suggest an allergic-type component of the body's reaction to it"

This is unreferenced, and sounds tentative - I've removed it until clarified.FengRail (talk) 18:09, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

also: "It is useful for making non-magnetic alloys" -specifically which ones?

and : "Beryllium dusts can be extremely damaging to the lungs, and the chronic inflammation produced by beryllium lesions can even trigger eventual development of cancer." - reference absolutely necessary.FengRail (talk) 18:11, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Also can someone clarify the magnetic uses section - is a Be alloy used if so what type?, or is pure Be used?FengRail (talk) 18:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Other problems
"The fact that 7Be and 8Be are unstable has profound cosmological consequences as it means that elements heavier than beryllium could not be produced by nuclear fusion in the Big Bang"

But triple alpha process seems to say that carbon is produced via Be8.FengRail (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, but the halflife is so short (10^-17 sec) that concentrations of Be-8 are always very low, and so it takes a long time to produce much C-12 this way. There is that time in the core of a star, but none in the big bang, where there is just a few mintues of time between when things too hot to allow existence of nuclei heavier than hydrogen, and when things are too cool and dispersed to allow any more fusion at all. S  B Harris 19:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm no expert on the big bang, I've removed the "syn" tag - and left the "clarifyme" tag. It's not clear why any Be produced would not be converted to C12 rather than decaying, or is no Be made?
 * In chemistry the Be would be called a reative intermediate - if the big bang is quick then is it beacuse formation of Be is slow that no heavier nuclei are made - the link between the instability and lack of heavier nucleotides isn't made clear.FengRail (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * On reading triple alpha process, it seems to me that the reason for the statement in question is because 8Be, formed from two helium nuclei, will spontaneously split back into two helium nuclei in a very short time unless it happens to fuse with a third helium nucleus. So it's not that the formation of 8Be is slow; it's that it decays so quickly that the likelihood of a third helium nucleus colliding with it is very low. As a result, to get any significant yield of 12C from 8Be, a very long "reaction time" is required: much, much longer than the time it took the initial universe to cool to a point where it's no longer hot enough for any fusion to occur at all. Hope this helps.&mdash;Tetracube (talk) 21:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ok So Be8 has a short half life (due to its instability) - which means it only exists in small concentration - limiting any further conversion to C12 in the big bang. ??
 * If that is right then I could change the article to explain that, if someone can confirm that I've got a correct explanation.FengRail (talk) 21:17, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * That's correct, as far as I can tell. But I'm no nuclear scientist, so I'll defer to somebody else to confirm this.&mdash;Tetracube (talk) 21:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

But if the unstable 4Be8 isotope has enough existence time for a third 2He4 particle to bond with it, why wouldn't it have enough time to bond with a stray 0n1 particle?WFPM (talk) 21:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Beryllium-8
Cost: $530/100 grams
 * = I didn't know there was any stable 4Be8. Maybe you're talking about 4Be9?
 * 8Be cannot be bought for any amount of money. It simply does not exist for anything remotely resembling enough time to collect it for sale.Fatal shadow (talk) 03:22, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Why doesn't the article show the decay mode of Beryllium 8?WFPM (talk) 20:55, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Because the infobox only shows the most stable isotopes (read the title), and Be-8 is one of the least stable, with half life 6.7(17)×10−17 sec. All the characterized isotopes are listed in isotopes of beryllium, the subarticle.

In Gamow's "a Star called the Sun" he talks about the alpha particles "bouncing against each other", in the context of the Triple alpha process. So they presumably merely return to being 2 independent alpha particles. Which calls into question the feasibility of the Triple alpha process. Did you get a chance to look at the National Geographic May 1985 article showing an artists drawing of the 6C12 nucleus? It would be nice to have a decent concept of its appearance as the result of the triple alpha accumulation process.WFPM (talk) 09:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Astrophysics and fusion physics are the places in physics with a lot of progress, so a book from 1985 might be not up to date?--Stone (talk) 10:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

What is at question is the practicality of the Triple alpha process for the creation of 6C12 from 3 alpha particles. And Hans Bethe got a Nobel for the idea of the process. But it's a very unlikely process, with the also highly unstable double alpha to 4Be8 process as an intermediate part of it. And Gamow was one of the authorities at the time. Take a look at the National Geographic May, 1985 article and see what you think.WFPM (talk) 11:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC)I also note your interest in periodic tables, so please take a look at the Janet Periodic table and at my contribution re same at Alternative periodic tables as to the atomic accumulation process.WFPM (talk) 11:55, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

It might be useful to note that 8Be is barely even a nucleus at all. In nuclear physics we frequently treat 8Be as not a nucleus but a resonance (A loose conglomeration of particles that form a state that is either unbound or bound so lightly that it will always fall apart). It's lifetime (not quite the same as half life) is so short that instead of the actual lifetime being quoted the NNDC instead quotes the energy width of it's ground state since that is inversely proportional to the lifetime via the uncertainty principle. I am not sure quite how to work this into the article, or even if it should be so I thought I would throw it up here and let those wiser than I decide. Fatal shadow (talk) 03:20, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes but besides the individual element, the table is also concerned with the logic of the organization of the periods of elements. And the Janet makes a good and interesting argument that after period 1, The elements 3 Lithium and 4 Beryllium make up a second period 2 (and a second alpha particle). Then the question becomes as to whether the third alpha particle is created by an additional alpha particle or else built up by being first surrounded by 6 additional deuterons (up to EE10Ne20) and then adding an extra alpha particle with 11Na + 12Mg deuterons. In that case and in the Janet table, all of the atom's contained alpha particles are created at the end of each period, and you wind up with 8 periods and 120 element atoms. See Talk:Charles Janet.WFPM (talk) 03:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Nuclear properties
Minor changes can be quite significant particularly the difference between MeV and eV. We need to discuss this section particularly in the light of the question on neutron multiplication.Johnpaterson1234 (talk) 09:13, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Nuclear Properties of Beryllium
The sections on Nuclear Properties and Nuclear Applications need to be compared because they are both incomplete. For example, under Nuclear Properties, the neutron reflection properties of beryllium are not even mentioned. Also, the total nuclear spin of beryllium is not mentioned, and there is nothing about the nuclear shell structure. Nothing is mentioned in this section about the nuclear fusion properties of beryllium, including: [He-4 + He-4] + He-4 --> Be-8 + He-4 --> carbon-12 98.81.14.72 (talk) 20:03, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Beryllium: Fictional references
Wondering of a small section on popular fiction references to Beryllium, accurate or not, should be made. I can think of two off the top of my head: In the 1996 Doctor Who movie, the Doctor needs to retrieve a beryllium atomic clock, and in the movie Galaxy Quest, the ship is fueled by beryllium spheres (as a parody of Star Trek's dilithium crystals).67.169.63.116 10:16, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No - especially the accurate or not bit. There exists an article for such trivia - fictional uses of real materials or some such. Vsmith 11:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Added fictional applications of real materials to the see also section. Femto 11:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah applications' - thanks, Vsmith 12:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Besides the mention in the movie GALAXY QUEST, a "beryllium sphere" is also mentioned - as a component of a new kind of nuclear explosive - in the 1994 movie THE SHADOW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.242.140 (talk) 15:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The article on [Fictional applications of real materials] was deleted in 2007. You need to get rid of it here. 98.81.14.72 (talk) 20:10, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Isaac Asimov wrote a MUCH better novella in S.F. that had to do with the poisonous properties of beryllium. Asimov had a Ph.D. in chemistry, so he knew what he was writing about — rather than being some goofball scriptwriter who just pulled the name of an element out of thin air.
 * Asimov's novella, Sucker Bait had to do with an expedition to a faraway planet in the remote future, but some time after landing, everyone in the crew became affected by it. The problem was that nobody recognized beryllium poisioning until later on. 98.81.14.72 (talk) 18:28, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Producing beryllium-9
In supernovas, this fusion reaction could occur: lithium-7 + hydrogen-2 --> beryllium-9 There is no arguing with the word "could" because in supernovas, all sorts of fusion reactions can occur: endothermic, exothermic, etc., because there is lots of excess energy available. In fact, via endothermic reactions in supernovas were how the heavy elements like uranium, thorium, lead, bismuth, cesium, and xenon were formed in our universe. 98.81.14.72 (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * This can happen, but other reactions are far more likely, so almost none of it does. The production of deuterium (the first and needed step in nucleosynthesis of helium) is very slow in the Sun and larger stars, with the average proton waiting a billion years before it manages to fuse with another proton and positron decay into deuterium. However, once the deuterium is formed, it's a sitting duck, and absorbs a common proton to form helium-3, with a meanlife of about 4 SECONDS. After which it is gone. So that few seconds is all the time it lasts waiting for your lithium-7 (which itself is incredibly rare for reasons to come). Far more likely is that it is burned normally to helium-3. (Helium-3, once formed, lasts maybe 400 years before absorbing another proton and turning positron decaying again to helium-4). All that (the proton-proton chain reaction) happens in our own star. Stars hotter than ours use the CNO cycle fusion reaction. Anyway, the point is that deuterium is very uncommon in stars, being burning immediately after formation, which is why we think essentially all deuterium in the universe is from the big bang. As for lithium-7, it is unstable to neutron reactions per Li-7 + n -> He-4 + H-3 + n. This destroys the lithium-7 rapidly. This reaction was the cause of the unexpectedly high yield of the Castle Bravo nuclear bomb (where the physicists had assumed Li-7 was inert in fusion reactions) which ran away to 2.5 times the expected yield and caused a radiological disaster downwind. Much the thing happens in a star, which has a number of steady sources of neutrons (see s-process and r-process) that rapidly rid it of excess Li-7. For this reason, Li-7 is also though to be mostly a product of cosmic ray nucleosynthesis with perhaps some fraction made by the Big Bang (this is debated). Of course, if any Be-9 did manage to get made inside a star, a rapid reaction with a hot helium nucleus would turn it into carbon-12, and then there would be no need for the triple alpha process to explain the origin of carbon in the universe. However, there is this need. Stars don't make Be-9.  S  B Harris 01:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Addendum. I should add, BTW, that the destruction of Li-7 by neutrons (per the Castle Bravo reaction above) is what happens in a supernova. There, the production of deuterium is faster than production by the same ratio of 1 billion years/4 seconds = 1016, but of course everything happens on a faster time scale pre-nova while the hydrogen burns (this in turn is quite different in various types of supernovae, some of which have hydrogen, and some of which do not). In a normal hydrogen-burning population I star where there are few metals, any lithium-7 formed would be destroyed by a proton reaction which as made famous by Cockcroft and Walton in 1932 when they "split the atom" with a proton accelerator with energy produced by the reaction (though of course not in net). This is Li-7 + p -> 2 He-4 (alphas). Historically that reaction is also important, as (together with discovery of the neutron in 1932) it stimulated Leo Szilard to think of the idea of getting power from the atom by means of a nuclear chain reaction. Szilard had that idea 6 years before nuclear fission was discovered as a source for the neutrons needed. S  B Harris 22:51, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Tools for MRI operation?
Seriously? While there's lots of information out there on alloy tools with copper in them, given the strengths of the fields involved and the nature of the equipment, it seems likely that something nonconductive - like specialty plastics - would make a much safer hi-tech screwdriver for poking around at an MRI while it's turned on... No citation yet, so its difficult to read more, tho I would like to. Zaphraud (talk) 02:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

They were also used in the military for radar and communications maintenance, but there was recently a directive to have all these tools turned in due to the health risks associated with Beryllium tools.75.92.186.161 (talk) 06:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Neutron multiplier? Hmm...
Article says:

"The predominant beryllium isotope 9Be also undergoes a (n,2n) neutron reaction to 8Be, that is, beryllium is a neutron multiplier, releasing more neutrons than it absorbs. This nuclear reaction is: 9Be + n → 2 x 4He + 2n"

This seems to be a chain reaction: it releases more neutrons that it consumes. Which makes me thinking, why we don't hear about beryllium neutron bombs? Since I cannot imagine that I'm the first one who thought of it, what are the reasons why this reaction can't be used to create runaway neutron multiplication in a block of pure solid (maybe explosively compressed) beryllium? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.132.186.34 (talk) 12:06, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium is a far more efficient process for producing high-velocity neutrons that can penetrate tanks, etc. 98.81.14.72 (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * A chain reaction doesn't just have to produce more neutrons that it consumes, but it must produce them with enough energy. It takes neutrons of more than about 1.9 MeV to fission Be-9, and the neutrons that come out of that reaction don't have nearly that much energy, so it's going nowhere. The alphas are very very poor producers of neutrons even in the reactions that do that (efficiencies far less than 1%). Be-9 might be used as a neutron multiplier for high energy fission neutrons of 14 MeV, but only in cases where these have a use over the original 14 MeV neutrons. That wouldn't be in a neutron bomb, but might be used to breed fission neutrons from fusion neutrons, for use in extra fission of the last fission-jacket stage, in conventional thermonuke "fission/fusion/jacket-fission" weapons. Whether it is actually used that way, is probably classififed. S  B Harris 20:53, 16 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Not classified any longer. Although I'm unable to write about the American scene, some official British documents were declassified and released to the National Archives in London in December 2011. These are identified as AVIA 65/1845 & 1846, and show that several British thermonuclear weapons, two strategic missile warheads and two tactical aircraft-delivered bombs, used the technique described above by S  B Harris. All used a thermonuclear secondary comprised of solid lithium-based fuel with a HEU "sparkplug" encased in a depleted uranium "fissionable-jacket", which in turn was encased in a beryllium shell that functioned as a neutron reflector.
 * These warhead secondaries were variants of the same basic design and used for the original UK Polaris missile and reused in the Chevaline successor. They were also used in the two UK tactical bombs WE.177B and WE.177C. The basic design of secondary was a UK copy of the US W-59 secondary used in some USAF Minuteman ICBMs. So although the US data has not been declassified, the UK declassifications strongly suggest that the US W-59 warheads used the same process of fission-fusion-fission with similar depleted uranium jackets and beryllium reflectors. George.Hutchinson (talk) 14:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Nothing on Thomas F Mancuso ?
According to the lancet : "In 1969 and 1970, Mancuso published studies showing elevated rates of lung cancer among beryllium-exposed workers at an Ohio facility. The industry fought Mancuso's findings, but in 2000, the National Toxicology Program acknowledged beryllium as a “known human carcinogen”."http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2804%2916749-4/fulltext ????Trente7cinq (talk) 08:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

ExternalMSDS
I have removed ESPI Metals from infobox beryllium. Unknown parameter, not used. -DePiep (talk) 15:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Beryllium toxicity and allergy article problems
The problems with lack of info here on beryllium allergic disease (a.k.a. berylliosis, a.k.a. chronic beryllium (lung) disease), dates from April, 25, 2010 when user:Arcadian decided without discussion to carve a big chunk of the well-referenced material that had been recently added to beryllium on "chronic beryllium disease", should be split out. He failed badly at WP:SS and left an inadequate summary in beryllium, which is why it all looks very mysterious here. Moreover, and worse still, he didn't notice that there had been from 2008 already an article on berylliosis, so he moved the article material (including a lot of material much better on the topic of berylliosis than that already in berylliosis!) to a new article called beryllium poisoning, which now hides the best berylliosis info. This, even though berylliosis is NOT poisoning per se (chemical toxicity or poisoning), but rather the chronic allergic reaction. In March, 2011 the berylliosis talk page (TALK:berylliosis) had a merge discussion in which a lot of people made various suggestions, but nothing happened. Most people working on beryllium don't even know there exists a beryllium poisoning article (it's not referenced here), and that this is where the info they are looking for on beryllium allergy, is hiding (some of it is even on the TALK:beryllium poisoning page). All this, due to very ham-handed editing in the past. If you-all want, I'll be WP:BOLD and fix it by moving the allergy info from beryllium poisoning to berylliosis, and also putting some summary of it back into beryllium. Or, do it yourselves. I had a lot of arguments at the time with some editor who had decided beryllium wasn't really an antigen, and prevented me from doing anything. S B Harris 03:19, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Use of Be as X-ray window
The part of Wiki article explaining the use of Be as X-ray window is correct. However, the sentence starting "As a metal, beryllium is transparent to most wavelengths of X-rays and gamma rays, ... " found in Nuclear properties part of this article is misguiding and should be corrected. The cause of transparency to X-rays is not metallic nature of Be, but its low atomic number.

So i suggest a change of that sentence to: "As a low atomic number element, beryllium is transparent to most wavelengths of X-rays and gamma rays, ... " — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.251.27.29 (talk) 15:34, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —  21:46, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Beryllium tools
This section seems to imply either pure or a high fraction beryllium alloy for tools. Given beryllium's toxicity, cost, etc., I suspect that the author is referring to beryllium copper. This should be clarified and cited. 09:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, almost all metals are non-magnetic... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joaosampaio (talk • contribs) 20:00, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Beryllium's concentration in sea water
I originally thought the two concentrations are different because one is ppt by volume while the other is ppt by mass. However looking at both sources and the generally-implied meaning of "ppt", and it seems they both refer to ppt by mass. So there is a difference by a factor of three. However, the webelements.com source states in the notes that "Values for the more rare elements are probably accurate to within an order of magnitude", i.e. the error bars are quite large, so I've simply put 0.2-0.6 ppt in the article. Banedon (talk) 00:53, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Problems at berylliosis
This could use some more eyes from those familiar with beryllium: Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Talk:Berylliosis
 * WP:ANI
 * User talk:QuackGuru

Assessment comment
Substituted at 09:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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Electrical conductance
I used to learn somewhere that beryllium is a quite peculiar electrical conductor. More specifically, that unlike most metals its conduction band is filled with electrons to more than a half, which makes it a unique (or very rare) p-type metal, and its Hall effect has the opposite sign. If it is true, then it ought to be included to the article. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * --Stone (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Amusing. Google does not show me the Ladd's book, but from the remaining two I realized that beryllium's charge carriers are holes at 2s (which is almost full) and electrons at 2p (which is almost empty). Thanks to Stone. Are somewhere more detailed diagrams, where I can see how these bands overlap? i.e. not only electrons' energies, but also momenta. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * --Stone (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Amusing. Google does not show me the Ladd's book, but from the remaining two I realized that beryllium's charge carriers are holes at 2s (which is almost full) and electrons at 2p (which is almost empty). Thanks to Stone. Are somewhere more detailed diagrams, where I can see how these bands overlap? i.e. not only electrons' energies, but also momenta. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Amusing. Google does not show me the Ladd's book, but from the remaining two I realized that beryllium's charge carriers are holes at 2s (which is almost full) and electrons at 2p (which is almost empty). Thanks to Stone. Are somewhere more detailed diagrams, where I can see how these bands overlap? i.e. not only electrons' energies, but also momenta. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:29, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

This is all absolutely right: see here and here. (It is also true of Cd and W.) Double sharp (talk) 02:58, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

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The Brush Elmore is now part of Materion. A reference you can use is at https://materion.com/-/media/files/pdfs/beryllium/beryllium-materials/mb-001designingandfabricatingberyllium.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by MaterionOhio (talk • contribs) 13:45, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Be-10 decays to... what?
Is 10Be a neutron emitter or beta emitter (decaying to 10B)? Dajwilkinson 23:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Beta-minus.   Georgewilliamherbert 00:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this right? Quoting from the article: "Cosmogenic 10Be thereby accumulates at the soil surface, where its relatively long half-life (1.51 million years) permits a long residence time before decaying to 10Be ." 10Be decays to 10Be? I'm no chemist, or nuclear physicist, just a student. But that sounds wrong. Imperpay (talk) 04:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It does not say what you wrote: "10Be decays to 10Be"  .  It says "10Be decays to 10B" .  The "B" rather than "Be" at the end of the sentence refers to Boron. The Boron nucleus has one more unit of nuclear charge than that of Beryllium. In the decay, a neutron changes to a proton, an electron and an electron-antineutrino (to distinguish it from a tau-antineutrino I used the prefix "electron.") The latter two particles exit (the electron or beta-particle and the anti-neutrino). The decay is slow because it is mediated by the weak force and the energy is relatively small.Carrionluggage (talk) 05:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Should say "decays to boron-10". The similarity in chemical symbols got us. Olthe3rd1 (talk) 02:31, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Metal or metalloid?
In the introductory section beryllium is called an "alkaline-earth metal", but in the Characteristics section it is called "a metalloid (not a metal)". Which is correct? Olthe3rd1 (talk) 02:29, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Usually it is called a metal, as physically it is a very good one. (Presumably, it would be about as commonly used as aluminium if it were not so toxic.) Mind you, it has some distinctly nonmetallic properties in its chemistry: the bonding in Be metal is significantly directional, and its oxide is amphoteric, reacting with NaOH to form beryllates like aluminium does (this is a simplification, but the principle is correct). BeCl2 is a covalent polymer as a solid, and is not ionic. I must confess that I'm not really convinced that this is enough for metalloid status, because otherwise aluminium would seem to deserve the name as well, and thus in agreement with most authors I have replaced "metalloid" with "metal". The crux of the matter is that "metals", "metalloids", and "nonmetals" do not form a strict trichotomy; neither do "metals" and "nonmetals" alone form a strict dichotomy, and while adding metalloids helps dissuade us of that, it unfortunately creates a different but similar illusion. There is no single property you can point to that only one of these sets of elements have, and truly, it does not matter so much (for example) which of these three you group the elements C, Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb in; it is more important that they are all in the same group.
 * Some authors would even restrict "alkaline earth metal" to Ca, Sr, Ba, and Ra, incidentally. R. V. Parish did so in The Metallic Elements (1977), following traditional usage, and that is still the common usage in Japan and (IIRC) Russia. Be and Mg tend to stand apart from the rest of the group, with Be being a more astonishing outlier. Double sharp (talk) 13:59, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

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Hi
i need to know about beryllium — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.188.7.96 (talk • contribs)
 * Please ask at Reference desk. This page is reserved for discussing improvements to the article. Thank you Jim1138 (talk) 19:29, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Inconsstency
The equation

[Be(H2O)4]2+ + H2O [Be(H2O)3(OH)]+ + H3O+

is inconsistent with the speciation diagram which shows that the concentration of [Be(H2O)3(OH)]+ is negligible at "normal" concentrations. The most important hydrolysis product is the trimer, [Be3(OH)3]3+ Petergans (talk) 12:09, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

They licked it?
It says
 * Early researchers tasted beryllium and its various compounds for sweetness in order to verify its presence. Modern diagnostic equipment no longer necessitates this highly risky procedure and no attempt should be made to ingest this highly toxic substance.

Do we know *why* it tastes sweet? Lollipop (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2020
The link to 'optical guidance' in the Mirrors section of the article appears to be incorrect.

It is currently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_system

Thanks Damon2k (talk) 23:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done – Thjarkur (talk) 12:54, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Glucinum
I was just flipping through an old textbook (A Course in General Chemistry by McPherson and Henderson) and it refers to the element as glucinum and gives "Gl" as its symbol, with a single mention of "beryllium" as an alternative name. My copy of the book is from 1921 and show earlier publication dates for the same textbook going back to 1913. This strikes me as a bit too far after 1900 to be saying that the old "glucinum" name was dropped circa 1900, but that would be my impression from the current wording of the article. Not going to change the wording of the article myself, as I am not bold, but I'm dropping a note here in case some editor with better resources and an interest in the history of chemistry happens to see it. 128.95.67.72 (talk) 15:07, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Belated thanks. "Gl" was officially dropped for "Be" in 1957, and the article now reflects this. —24.191.101.223 (talk) 01:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2021
In the Etymology section, please: Many thanks. — 24.191.101.223 (talk) 01:42, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Change "Until c. 1900" to "Until 1957".
 * 2) Change the  reference to.
 * 3) Delete the  tag.
 * ✅ Thank you for pointing this out and offering this source. ComplexRational (talk) 02:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the quick fix. It was actually a $2000 clue on last night's Jeopardy! —24.191.101.223 (talk) 01:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Neutron multiplier
Archive says Article says: "The predominant beryllium isotope 9Be also undergoes a (n,2n) neutron reaction to 8Be, that is, beryllium is a neutron multiplier, releasing more neutrons than it absorbs. This nuclear reaction is: 9Be + n → 2 x 4He + 2n" but it seems missing now. (We could mention the energy of the neutrons in and out) The archive discusses in nuclear weapons, but there are other applications:

Be is proposed as a neutron multiplier layer in prototype Li->tritium breeding blankets in ITER. I'll try to (re)find the refs. - Rod57 (talk) 12:46, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Your revert.
@User:Kzqj What is wrong with the following sentence? I do not see any grammatical error here, while you call it "ungrammatical nonsense". Could you be more specific? 85.193.215.210 (talk) 00:00, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Modern diagnostic equipment no longer needs this highly risky procedure.

Of course, equipment does not have needs or desires, at least not at present, but we can say that in the sense that. Maslow's hierarchy of needs does not apply here. Note that in Google Search the phrase "cars need fuel" returns 22k hits (normally) and 1.5k hits in Google Books. But I admit that the use of the word "need" is a bit risky here. Several participants in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#%22ungrammatical_nonsense%22? this discussion] tried to explain to you the difference between syntax and semantics but their efforts were in vain, and you still confuse the two terms. If you carefully read the article Colorless green ideas sleep furiously, you will have some idea. If you are a native English speaker then, by definition, you do not know much about English grammar - everything seems natural and automatic and works pretty well but - as you can see - not always. Just because you subconsciously use both syntax and semantics doesn't make you a linguist.

I have every right to know how my version harmed the article because - ROWN states clearly: 85.193.215.210 (talk) 18:41, 10 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Your IP address suggests that you are Polish. Is that correct? Kzqj (talk) 07:33, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Kzqj, that is not relevant. You are not supposed to query this info. Please remove your post. DePiep (talk) 07:34, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * "Not supposed to"? Says who? Kzqj (talk) 08:56, 8 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If you are querying a user's nationality to infer their English language skills, that would be racist. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 23:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Also problematic behaviour in . DePiep (talk) 09:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me be clear. either retract your racist comments or I will ensure you instead explain yourself to an administrator. Polyamorph (talk) 19:54, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It would not be. Clearly, if the user is Polish, then English is not their first language. Knowing what their first language is may help to understand why they cannot see the problem with the nonsense text they tried to add to the article. Kzqj (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * By the same logic I could ask you how old you are. To paraphrase you: 85.193.215.210 (talk) 15:40, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Correct safety diamond?
The safety diamond has a 3 in both flamability and unstability, the description of this flamability level says that it burns at room temperature, however in the text it says that beryllium "must be heated over 1000ºC in order to burn", as there is no source for the diamond I don't think that it's the correct one, perhaps it's for a beryllium compound and not the metal itself, does anybody have any further information? --Bsckr (talk) 17:04, 9 April 2021 (UTC)