What are the uses of the metal molybdenum?
Molybdenum is mainly used in iron and steel industry, most of which is directly used in steelmaking or cast iron after industrial molybdenum oxide pressed block, and a small part of which is smelted into ferromolybdenum and then used in steelmaking.
The content of molybdenum in low alloy steel is less than 1%, but the consumption of this aspect accounts for about 50% of the total consumption of molybdenum. The corrosion resistance of stainless steel can be improved by adding molybdenum.
The strength and wear resistance of iron can be improved by adding molybdenum to cast iron. Nickel-based superalloys containing 18% molybdenum have the characteristics of high melting point, low density and small thermal expansion coefficient, etc. They are used to manufacture a variety of high temperature resistant components in aviation and aerospace.
Molybdenum metal is widely used in electronic devices such as electron tubes, transistors and rectifiers. Molybdenum oxide and molybdate are excellent catalysts in the chemical and petroleum industries.
Molybdenum disulfide is an important lubricant used in the aerospace and mechanical industries. In addition, because of its unique sulfur resistance, molybdenum disulfide can catalyze the hydrogenation of carbon monoxide to alcohols under certain conditions, and is a very promising C1 chemical catalyst. Molybdenum is one of the essential trace elements in plants and is used as trace element fertilizer in agriculture.
Molybdenum has the potential to replace graphene in electronics
Use of MoS2 (molybdenum, molybdenum disulfide) produced the molybdenum based flexible microprocessor chip, on the basis of the MoS2 microchip only if an equal 20% of the silicon chip size, extremely low power consumption, brightness transistors made of molybdenum in the case of standby power consumption for one over one hundred thousand of the silicon transistor, and cheaper than the same size of graphene circuit.
The biggest change is that the circuits are so flexible and so thin that they can be attached to human skin. Molybdenite is a strong competitor to replace silicon based chips in the future. Professor Andras Kish, who led the research, said molybdenite was a good next generation semiconductor material and had great promise in making ultra-small transistors, light-emitting diodes and solar cells.
One of the advantages of molybdenum over silicon and graphene is its smaller size. Molybdenum monolayers are two-dimensional, whereas silicon is a three-dimensional material. Electrons can move as easily on a 0.65 nanometer-thick film of molybdenite as on a two-nanometer-thick film of silicon. Molybdenite can be processed to a thickness of only three atoms!
The mechanical properties of molybdenite have also attracted interest as a potential material for use in elastomeric electronic devices such as elastomeric thin wafers. They can be used to make computers that can be curled up or devices that can be attached to the skin. It can even be implanted in humans.
Pure molybdenum wire for high temperature furnace and EDM and wire cutting processing; Molybdenum sheets are used to make radios and X-ray equipment; Molybdenum is resistant to high temperature ablation and is mainly used in the manufacture of gun inner bore, rocket nozzle and tungsten filament bracket of electric bulb.
Molybdenum can be added to alloy steel to improve the elastic limit, corrosion resistance and maintain permanent magnetism, etc. Molybdenum is one of the seven micronutrient elements needed for plant growth and development, without it, plants cannot survive. Animals and fish need molybdenum as well as plants.
The application of molybdenum in other alloys and chemical industry is also expanding. For example, molybdenum disulfide lubricant is widely used in all kinds of machinery lubrication, molybdenum metal is gradually applied in nuclear power, new energy and other fields.
