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Cobalt is a chemical element; it has symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, somewhat brittle, gray metal.
Naturally occurring cobalt, Co, consists of a single stable isotope, 59 Co (thus, cobalt is a mononuclidic element). Twenty-eight radioisotopes have been characterized; the most stable are 60 Co with a half-life of 5.2714 years, 57 Co (271.811 days), 56 Co (77.236 days), and 58 Co (70.844 days). All other isotopes have half-lives of less than ...
A minimal presence of cobalt in soils therefore markedly improves the health of grazing animals, and an uptake of 0.20 mg/kg a day is recommended because they have no other source of vitamin B 12. [3] Proteins based on cobalamin use corrin to hold the cobalt. Coenzyme B 12 features a reactive C-Co bond that participates in the reactions. [4]
[citation needed] Over geological time scales, very few metals can resist natural weathering processes like oxidation, so mainly the less reactive metals such as gold and platinum are found as native metals. The others usually occur as isolated pockets where a natural chemical process reduces a common compound or ore of the metal, leaving the ...
Aluminum warrants special mention because it is the most abundant metal and the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust; [3] despite this, it is not essential for life. With this sole exception, the eight most highly abundant elements in the Earth's crust , making up over 90% of the crustal mass, [ 3 ] are also essential for life.
To investors, natural resources are known as the "commodities" market. This is a major sector of investing, with both professionals and retail investors alike putting their money into assets like ...
The nuclides found naturally comprise not only the 286 primordials, but also include about 52 more short-lived isotopes (defined by a half-life less than 100 million years, too short to have survived from the formation of the Earth) that are daughters of primordial isotopes (such as radium from uranium); or else are made by energetic natural ...
Eventually, a less costly pigment was developed from cobalt ores, giving the color its present-day name. Cosmic Cobalt has been a favorite color for artists of every era. Getty Images/Wikimedia ...