Gallium

Gallium a chemical element classified as a poor metal, and also known by the chemical symbol Ga. This element is found around Europe, but is unavailable in the crust of the United states. Gallium is used to make solar panels and LED lights because of it's high conductivity. The unique part of this element is that you can get Gallium from nature rarely and Gallium turns into liquid at room temperature like Bromine and Mercury.

Properties
Gallium is a post transition metal in group 4 period 13 with 31 atoms.Gallium's melting point is 29.5 degrees Celsius and it's boiling point is 2204 degrees Celsius. Gallium is solid in room temperature but when you heat it, it turns into a liquid state. Gallium is usually blue-gray but color changes to silvery color when it become pure. Cesium, Francium, and Mercury have similar properties like Gallium. One of the Gallium's unique property is that Gallium expands as it freezes. Since Gallium can not be extracted from the nature, people extract the Gallium from Aluminum and Zinc. It can conduct electrical current but not as much as effective as lead.

Occurrences
Gallium is contained in the earth's crust you can often find Gallium from nature called Gallite, but it's too rare so it is hard to use it as primary source of element. Gallium can be extracted from bauxite, which is a Aluminum ore. Gallium's abundance is about 16.9 PPM and Gallium can be extracted from severe different ores such as Sphalerite, coal, Diaspore, and Germanite. Even though the earth's crust contains a lot of Gallium you cannot find them in united states but in Australia, Russia, France, and Germany. Like Mentioned above Gallium can be extracted from several different ores but the primary source of Gallium is the compound of Zinc and Aluminum ore.

Uses
Gallium can conduct electrical currents but not as much as effective as lead, so to amplify the conductivity, they use a compound called Gallium Arsenide and it can be used to make solar panel. Even though Gallium Arsenide costs more than any other element that can conduct electricity, people prefer the Gallium Arsenide, so they only use a thin slice of Gallium Arsenide on the solar cell. People use Gallium Arsenide to make LED lights because Gallium Arsenide is very insensitive to heat, so that it can prevent the object that uses LED light from over heating the product and it's also extremely flexibly than any other semiconductor. It's also used to Make MMIC, which is Microwave Monolithic IC. It is a little circuit that goes into your phone or any kinds of device that can allow you to communicate with others. People usually make MMIC with silicon, but it's too much of a resistance for the Microwave Frequency.So they started to use MMIC that made out of Gallium Arsenide, so it allowed much more wider frequency and allows us to use data faster.

History
Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran is the person who discovered Gallium, although perhaps by accident. Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran studied spectra of the Chemical element and Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran came up with the theory that there is a missing element between Aluminum and Indium based on a observation of the spectra of elements. The year when he discovered Gallium, he happened to obtain pure gallium through the electrolysis of a solution of gallium hydroxide in potassium hydroxide and he was able to find out where he could find this element. Even though Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered Gallium, Mendeleev gets the credit for predicting the free slots for the undiscovered elements and Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran mentioned that he knew about Mendeleyev's work, leaving the free slots. He was able to find the right place for the Gallium based on Mendeleev's work.

Video
Gallium includes an experiment called "the beating heart |N6ccRvKKwZQ