CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

anodising    →   anodizacija

Anodising is a method of coating objects made of aluminium with a protective oxide film, by making them the anode in an electrolytic bath containing an oxidising electrolyte. Anodising can also be used to produce a decorative finish by formation of an oxide layer that can absorb a coloured dye.

argon    →   argon

Argon was discovered by Lord Raleigh and Sir William Ramsay (Scotland) in 1894. The origin of the name comes from the Greek word argos meaning inactive. It is colourless and odourless noble gas. Chemically inert. It is the third most abundant element in the earth’s atmosphere and makes up about 1 %. Argon is continuously released into the air by decay of radioactive potassium-40. Pure form is obtained from fractional distillation of liquid air. Used in lighting products. It is often used in filling incandescent light bulbs. Some is mixed with krypton in fluorescent lamps. Crystals in the semiconductor industry are grown in argon atmospheres.

autoxidation    →   autooksidacija

Autoxidation, autooxidation is a oxidation is caused by exposure to air. Rust is an example of autoxidation. Autoxidation makes ether taken from half-filled bottles very dangerous, because air oxidises ether to highly explosive organic peroxides.

celluloid    →   celuloid

Celluloid is a transparent highly flammable substance made from cellulose nitrate with a camphor plasticizer. It was formerly widely used as a thermoplastic material, especially for film (a use now discontinued owing to the flammability of celluloid).

fogged metal    →   zamagljeni metal

Fogged metal is a metal whose lustre has been reduced because of a surface film, usually a corrosion product layer.

insulator    →   izolator

Insulator is a material in which the highest occupied energy band (valence band) is completely filled with electrons, while the next higher band (conduction band) is empty. Solids with an energy gap of 5 eV or more are generally considered as insulators at room temperature. Their conductivity is less than 10^-6 S/m and increases with temperature.

Jones’s reductor    →   Jonesov reduktor

Jones’s reductor is a column filled with zinc amalgam. It is used for analyte reduction.

barium    →   barij

Barium was discovered by Sir Humphry Davy (England) in 1808. The origin of the name comes from the Greek word barys meaning heavy. It is soft, slightly malleable, silvery-white metal. Attacked by air and water. Soluble compounds toxic by ingestion. Barium is found in barytine (BaSO₄) and witherite (BaCO₃), never found in pure form due to its reactivity. Must be stored under kerosene to remain pure. Barite, or barium sulfate (BaSO₄), when ground is used as a filter for rubber, plastics and resins. It is insoluble in water and so is used in X-rays of the digestive system. Barium nitrate, Ba(NO₃)₂, burns brilliant green and is used in fireworks.

barometer    →   barometar

Barometer is an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure. A mercury barometer is a closed tube filled with mercury inverted in a mercury reservoir. The height of the mercury column indicates atmospheric pressure (with 1 atm = 760 mm of mercury). An aneroid barometer consists of an evacuated container with a flexible wall. When atmospheric pressure changes, the wall flexes and moves a pointer which indicates the changing pressure on a scale.

body-centered cubic lattice    →   prostorno centrirana kubična rešetka

Body-centered cubic lattice (bcc or cubic-I), like all lattices, has lattice points at the eight corners of the unit cell plus an additional points at the center of the cell. It has unit cell vectors a = b = c and interaxial angles α=β=γ=90°.

The simplest crystal structures are those in which there is only a single atom at each lattice point. In the bcc structures the spheres fill 68 % of the volume. The number of atoms in a unit cell is two (8 × 1/8 + 1 = 2). There are 23 metals that have the bcc lattice.