Molybdenum, a mysterious "strategic" metal, is not surprising in appearance, but is widely used!
Molybdenum is a transition metal element with a value of 42 on the periodic table. Its chemical symbol is molybdenum. Molybdenum is silvery white, hard and tough. It does not react with hydrochloric acid or hydrofluoric acid.
Come out after a thousand calls
In nature, molybdenum mainly exists in the form of Molybdenite (MoS2). Natural molybdenite is a kind of black soft mineral. Although molybdenite has been used in ancient times, it is difficult to distinguish Molybdenite from lead, galena and graphite. The word "molybdos" means lead in Greek. Before the end of the 18th century, both metals were sold on the European market in the name of molybdenum.
In 1779, Scheler pointed out that lead or graphite and molybdenum were two completely different substances. He found that nitric acid had no effect on graphite, but reacted with molybdenum ore to produce white powder; nitric acid boiled with alkali solution and precipitated salt after crystallization. He thought that the white powder was a kind of metal oxide (actually molybdenum oxide), which was mixed with charcoal and heated at high temperature, but it was co heated with sulfur to get the original molybdenum.
In 1782, Elmo, Scheler's good friend and Swedish miner, mixed the mixture of charcoal and molybdic acid with linseed oil to separate the metal from the molybdenum ore and named it molybdenum with the element symbol Mo, which was translated into molybdenum in China. It has been known by the famous Swedish chemist bezirius, who discovered cerium, selenium, silicon, tantalum, thorium and other elements.
When molybdenum is burned in air, it will emit golden yellow light; molybdenum ions with different oxidation states have different colors. It was not until 1893, more than 100 years after the discovery of molybdenum, that moson melted the mixture of carbon and molybdenum trioxide in the electric furnace, and obtained the casting metal containing 92% - 96% molybdenum for the first time.
Rich resources to be developed
Molybdenum mainly exists in granites in the earth's crust. Molybdenum ore is relatively simple, mainly sulfide ore.
Due to the special use of molybdenum in military weapons, the world's major countries list molybdenum as a mineral resource that needs strategic reserve. Strategic mineral reserves or mineral products strategic reserves mainly refer to the mineral resources which have strategic significance for national security and are relatively scarce in China. At present, 10 countries in the world have established strategic mineral reserve system.
China is rich in molybdenum resources, with a total reserve of 8.6 million tons (in terms of molybdenum), of which industrial reserves are about 3.5 million tons, ranking second in the world. Molybdenum resources in China are characterized by large reserves, wide distribution, large deposits and shallow ore bodies, which have an important impact on the global molybdenum market.
North America is also rich in molybdenum resources.
Compared with rare earth elements, China's control of molybdenum is more advanced. It is reported that the Ministry of resources is preparing to list molybdenum as a protective mining mineral, implement the total mining management and release the total mining index. This will make molybdenum the sixth special mineral after gold, tungsten, tin, antimony and rare earth.
