sulfur

=Sulfur=

More than Just Meets the Eye or Should I Say Nose
[|Sulfur], known as brimstone since biblical times, is a stunning shade of yellow. It has a crystal like shape, and when it burns the flames are bright blue. However when you think of sulfur, you probably aren’t thinking of its smashing looks, but it’s bad smell, a smell which is usually associated with rotten eggs. It may surprise you to know that sulfur in its pure form is tasteless and odorless! Sulfur, on top of being beautiful, doesn’t smell bad. You can blame the very unfortunate false accusation on H2S (hydrogen sulphide) when hydrogen is chemically bonded to sulfur. H2S smells bad, not pure sulfur. On top of smelling bad, H2S can be extremely dangerous. In high amounts it can cause a rapid death by making you not able to breathe, and it quickly deadens your sense of smell. H2S is also an important impurity in natural gas which must be removed before the gas is used. Along with H2S sulfur dioxide (SO2) is very dangerous. Although it does not cause a quick death, it is equally as hazardous. Sulfur dioxide can be found in coal and many oils. When they are burned it is released into the air, which causes air pollution and results in acid rain. Sulfur is a pretty reactive element, those reactions create many things, such as pyrite, or fool’s gold, and it can imitate many natural gases. However I think that the two reactions that I described are the most important and relevant to the world. and odorless! Sulfur, on top of being beautiful, doesn’t smell bad. You can blame the very unfortunate false accusation on H2S

Even though sulfur can make some very dangerous things, it is very good and important to the world. Many believe that life on earth couldn’t have been possible without sulfur. The first sea organisms may have depended on the energy that they can get from sulfur by the way of chemosynthesis, which could have been found in the pores of volcanoes. Proteins need sulfur. [|Sulfur] is necessary for amino acids and enzymes. Sulfur makes up some amino acids which make up proteins. Sulfur is vital for all life on earth. Plants and animals need its nutrients. Humans need to consume at least 1 gram of sulfur per day. Obviously, you don’t eat raw sulfur, producers take it from the soil and we consumer eat it ([|energy cycle!] ) In fact sulfur is the 7th most found element in the human body. We are made of 0.006% sulfur! I guarantee you that somewhere in your house you have sulfur. Well you are made partly of sulfur so if you have any animal or plant in your house you automatically have sulfur. But aside from that, your house most definitely has sulfur. Do you use any acne medicine; well look at the ingredients guess what you’ll find. Many medicines including penicillin contain sulfur. It is used in many anti-biotic for bladder and kidney infections. Matches, gunpowder and fireworks also use sulfur because it’s ability to burn. Many fertilizers use sulfur because of its nutrients. As I already mentioned sulfur could be used to imitate many gases, so many manufactures use it. Sometimes it is added to gas so that if there is a leak you will be able to detect it because it will smell!

Sulfur can be found in many places including hot springs, volcanoes, meteorites and some moons! Our moon contains sulfur in a few of its craters, and so does Jupiter’s volcanic moon Lo. Manufacturers use a simple method called the Frasch process. This is an interesting process which takes sulfur from underground deposits without mining it. Instead they use superheated water and steam to force sulfur to the surface. The use of Sulfur is much more common and varied than most people think.

Sulfur’s atomic number is 16 which mean it has 16 protons, positively charged particles in the nucleus. Its atomic mass is 32 to find the atomic mass you need to add the number of protons and neutrons, neutral particles in the nucleus; in the nucleus it has 16 protons and 16 neutrons. Even though the nucleus is the smallest part in the atom it is by far the heaviest. Sulfur is not a “happy ” or stable atom, for it has 16 electrons. The electrons are in regions we call rings. With 6 electrons being on the outside shell sulfur only needs 2 more electrons to complete the third ring and be completely “happy”. So it is pretty desperate, it will combine with any other willing atom to get the 2 electrons that are needed to make it completely stable and happy. That is the reason that sulfur is as reactive as it is.

Sulfur has a rich and interesting history. In ancient Egypt, sulfur was used to treat granular eyelids. It was used by pagan priests 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. Pre-Romans used to burn sulfur as medicine, and made incense out of to use in religious services. The Greeks used it, and in the Odyssey it said that they used burned sulfur to purify a sick room. In the years 557?-479 B.C, the Chinese used sulfur to make gunpowder. The Chinese also widely used it as traditional medicine. From then on sulfur was mined and used all over the world. But people didn’t know that sulfur was an element for a very long time. Up until 1777 when a Frenchman named Antoine Lavoisier came along. He helped convince the scientific community that sulfur was an element and not a compound. Brimstone, which is another word for sulfur, is mentioned in the Torah (Old Testament) in Genesis. It was mentioned in a description of fiery hell! In fact in the old days the threat “hellfire and brimstone” was used to scare people into being good.

I hope that after reading this the word “sulfur” doesn’t make you cringe in the anticipation of a bad smell, for you now know that sulfur is odorless. The threat of brimstone shouldn’t frighten you. Over all sulfur is good. It is true that sulfur does have some bad characteristics, but so does everything on this earth. Most of the bad characteristics of sulfur come from what humans do with it. Sulfur in its pure form is good and pure. We should be very thankful to sulfur because without it we wouldn’t be alive. So next time that you light a match, or eat a plant, or put on some acne cream on, you should think to yourself “wow there is sulfur in this thing" want to see more look at my sulfur web, sulfur poster and sulfur bibliography