The Beryllium Thread

[Simplex3]

I'm putting this in here so that it won't hang around the top of the lounge while I cut and paste information in to post after post.

This is part of my ongoing offseaon attempt to get us ranked on the first page of some search engine(s) when nerds search for "beryllium".

Before you PM me with "Why?", the answer is simply that I am sitting around reading log files at work and cutting and pasting into this thread requires absolutely NO mental stress.

[Simplex3]

* Beryllium has also been used in tweeter and mid-range audio loudspeaker construction by companies like Brush Wellman - Electrofusion Products and Focal-JMlab (on its flagship Utopia Be series) as an alternative to titanium and aluminium, largely due to its lower density and greater rigidity.[6]

[Simplex3]

* Because of its low atomic number beryllium is almost transparent to energetic electrically charged particles. Therefore it is used to build the beam pipe around the collision region in collider particle physics experiments. Notably all four main experiment at the Large Hadron Collider accelerator (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb) use a beryllium beam-pipe.

[Simplex3]

See also Beryllium compounds.

[Simplex3]

[edit] Isotopes

[Simplex3]

Plot showing variations in solar activity, including variation in 10Be concentration.

[Simplex3]

Of beryllium's isotopes, only 9Be is stable. Cosmogenic 10Be is produced in the atmosphere by cosmic ray spallation of oxygen and nitrogen. Because beryllium tends to exist in solution at pH levels less than about 5.5 (and most rainwater has a pH less than 5), it will enter into solution and be transported to the Earth's surface via rainwater. As the precipitation quickly becomes more alkaline, beryllium drops out of solution. 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 10B. 10Be and its daughter products have been used to examine soil erosion, soil formation from regolith, the development of lateritic soils, as well as variations in solar activity and the age of ice cores.

[Bowser]

[Simplex3]

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. Moreover, the nuclear energy levels of 8Be are such that carbon can be produced within stars, thus making life possible. (See triple-alpha process and Big Bang nucleosynthesis).

[Simplex3]

The shortest-lived known isotope of beryllium is 13Be which decays through neutron emission. It has a half-life of 2.7 × 10-21 seconds. 6Be also is also very short-lived with a half-life of 5.0 × 10-21 seconds.

[Simplex3]

The exotics 11Be and 14Be are known to exhibit a nuclear halo.

[Simplex3]

[edit] Health effects

[Simplex3]

[edit] Precautions

[Simplex3]

Beryllium ore

[Simplex3]

Beryllium and its salts are toxic substances and potentially carcinogenic. Chronic berylliosis is a pulmonary and systemic granulomatous disease caused by exposure to beryllium. Acute beryllium disease in the form of chemical pneumonitis was first reported in Europe in 1933 and in the United States in 1943. Cases of chronic berylliosis were first described in 1946 among workers in plants manufacturing fluorescent lamps in Massachusetts. Chronic berylliosis resembles sarcoidosis in many respects, and the differential diagnosis is often difficult.

[Simplex3]

Although the use of beryllium compounds in fluorescent lighting tubes was discontinued in 1949, potential for exposure to beryllium exists in the nuclear and aerospace industries and in the refining of beryllium metal and melting of beryllium-containing alloys, the manufacturing of electronic devices, and the handling of other beryllium-containing material.