Basically, all legal free speech is allowed. We will assist the authorities in dealing with illegal speech. You are each other’s moderators. Have fun. And don’t forget to MAGA at nuclear levels.
Citizen U
Day 40 – ZIRCONIUM.
OPEN THREAD 20191216
Published
The U Tree 
Zirconium is a busy little element, so — as usual, we’ll start with the easy stuff. Zirconium has no known biological function.
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Zirconium is named after the mineral zircon, which is zirconium silicate, ZrSiO4. It is all over the place — frequently found in granite in little .1mm-.3mm specks. [Granite, one may remember, is a combination of quartz, feldspar, and mica.] Zircons in granite are frequently used to measure aging, as they frequently include trace amounts of radioactive materials and are essentially sealed packages for them. Zircons can be found in nature in crystals as large as a few centimeters, but those are rare….and frequently regarded as gemstones. Powdered zircon is common in paints, ceramic glazes, glass, and the like because it confers opacity — meaning that you can’t see through it. The natural crystal shape of zircons is roughly tetrahedral and it is frequently used in abrasives and grinding surfaces.
Zirconium melts at a very respectable 3371F (compare to iron at 2800F or tungsten [the record holder] at 6192F). Because of this, zirconium (frequently as zircons or zirconium dioxide [ZrO2]) is often used in firebrick, crucibles, glass kilns, and other heat-resistant structures.
Annual worldwide zirconium production is about 900,000 tonnes. Zircons cost about $840/tonne, where actual zirconium is about $22,700 per ton. This, alone, tells you most of what you need to know about the process of separating and purifying zirconium.
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OK, let’s jump to the fun stuff. If you’ve ever dabbled in electronics, you may have encountered piezoelectronic devices — things that change shape when you apply electricity (or generate electricity as they change shape). You can use a piezo element in an electonic scale — when you squash it by applying weight, it provides electricity, which you can measure. You can use piezo elements in precision levelers — as you apply electricity to each unit, it will change shape, making things level. Often, loudspeakers have piezo tweeters.
And these frequently are known as PZT devices, which I had assumed until tonight stood for something like “PieZoTransducer”. Instead, (prepare for horrible misuse of chemical symbols), PZT refers to “lead zirconate titanate” because its chemical formula is “Pb[ZrxTi1−x]O3 (0≤x≤1)” — a ceramic made from lead (Pb), zirconium (Zr), and titanium (Ti).
This stuff was developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology around 1952. Because of its low cost, chemical resistance, physical strength, and ability to be “tuned” to a desired application, this stuff has taken over the world. There are supposed to be other piezoelectronic gizmos out there, but all of ’em I’ve seen were PZT. More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_zirconate_titanate .
I learned something chasing this bit.
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Very cool stuff!!!
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And for another freaky-deaky zirconium substance, let us now consider zirconium tungstate — Zr(WO4)2 — which is just a trifle unusual in that it shrinks when heated. As in, you can take a 1cm x 1cm x 1cm cube of the stuff, throw a blowtorch on it, and get a .99cm x .99cm x .99cm cube. The actual shrinkage is about 3% over a temperature range of -459F to 1430F, so you’d only have to heat it about 700 degrees to get a 1% shrink. Stuff was only discovered in 1996.
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There are several other things to chase regarding zirconium — its use in high-temperature corrosive environments, and contributions to explosions at Three Mile Island and Fukushima when the limitations of this were overwhelmed; cubic zirconia and its use to subsidize the late-night television advertising industry; and a whole lot of metallurgy where it has been used to grant corrosion resistance and heat resistance to everything imaginable……but they’re less fun.
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Pelosi Admits Impeachment FAILED …Pastor Marty ! 😀
latest !
hello ? hello ?
anybody here ?
🙂
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wallowing in Gomorrah…
it does not get much lower & vile than this disgusting bit of news….
BUSTED : Another Drag Queen Sexual Predator Found Grooming Children In Texas Elementary School
article here…
from Dec 13, 2019
at The Blackshear Art Academy in Austin, Texas…
that’s Daniel Robinson (on the left in above montage) who goes by the drag queen name Miss Kitty Litter ATX , and is also a convicted sex offender …
somehow the Austin School District is ok with this, allowing the freaking digusting pos to “speak to the children”….
more about this…and about what else is being “taught” to little kids there…at the link…with imbedded links to other related articles.
this is just one of the many types of sickening left-wing marxist indoctrination being forced upon American children in American schools.
Joe McCarthy was right…he and others tried to warn us, way back in The Old Days….
I remember it well.
and now we have the likes of Miss Kitty Litter ATX with his filthy criminal predatory hands all over our kids while they’re in school ?
…and getting away with it ?
one wonders : what’s next….
….. anyone remember the Scriptural reference to Sodom & Gomorrah ?
anyone ?
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