2. What’s in a name?
Named and discovered by Swedish
Scientist Georg Brandt in 1739
The blue color given to glass was previously
attributed to Bismuth. Brandt was trying to prove
that it was due to a different element, which was
discovered to be Cobalt.
The name cobalt derives from the German
word “kobald”, which means evil spirit or
goblin and the Greek word “cobalos”, which
means mine.
Difficult to mine and adverse health implications
3. General Properties
Atomic Number: 27
Atomic Weight: 58.933200 g
State at Room Temperature: Solid
Appearance: Silver-gray metal
Melting Point: 2723 ˚F, 1495 ˚C, 1768 K
Boiling Point: 5198˚F, 2870˚C, 3143 K
Density: 8.9 grams per cubic centimeter
4. Isotopes
One main isotope—Cobalt-60
○ Most radioactive form of cobalt
○ Most exposure from medical tests and
treatment
○ Produced from weapons testing
○ Cancer radiotherapy
○ Irradiate (sterilization) of food—controversial
topic as to safety of this process
○ Sterilize medical instruments
○ Test welds and casting industrially
5. Compounds Containing Cobalt
Combined with…
Salts—carbonate, sulfate, nitrate, acetate (catalysts)
Oxide, hydroxide, carbonate (dyes)
Component of Alnico along with aluminum and nickel
Magnetic Compounds (mainly composed of Iron and
Cobalt)
○ Permendur 49
○ Permendur 24
○ Rotelloy 3
○ AFK 524
○ Alcomax and Columax (iron, aluminum, nickel, and
copper)
6. Key Functional Properties
Resistant to oxygen
Resistant to corrosion and damage
Hard
Produces blue color in salts
Ductile
Ferromagnetic
7. Common Uses
Very broad window of uses
Deep blue color of glass, ceramics, pottery, enamel, tile,
porcelain
Wear resistant coatings
Formation of alloys
○ Permanent magnets
Alnico
○ Forms Stellite—high temperature, high speed cutting tools
○ Jet engines
○ Magnetic Steels
○ Stainless Steels
Forms part of Vitamin B 12
Radiation Therapy (Cobalt-60)
Batteries
8. Proportionality of Use
Market Percentage Common Use
Superalloy 19.0% Jet engines
Hardfacing and Other 6.0% Protective
Alloys
Magnets 7.0% Magnetic Steel
Hard Materials 13.0% Diamond Tooling
Catalysts 9.0% Salts (carbonate,
sulfate…)
Color 10.0% (Glass, Enamel, Plastic,
Tiling, Fabric)
Feedstuffs, Recording 4.0 Mainly Carbonate
Media, Electrolysis
Batteries 27.0 Rechargeable batteries—
portable devices
Adhesives, Soaps, Driers 5.0 Paints and inks
In other words…most people encounter at least one use of Cobalt on a
daily basis!
9. Supply and Demand
Mainly imported
Naturally occurring in fairly small
amounts
By-product of other metals—nickel and
copper
~ 55% from nickel industry
~ 35% from copper industry
~ 10% from primary cobalt operations
10. Where it’s found and refined
Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia,
Australia, Brazil, Cuba, Russia, China
Source Percentage
Africa ~52%
Americas ~17%
Australia ~24%
Asia ~7%
11. Cost
2 forms are sold: HG—minimum 99.8%
cobalt and LG—minimum 99.3% cobalt
Similar trends are seen in the price of
the two
99.80% tends to cost more
Average 2010 Values
○ 99.8% (HG) = $20.56/lb
○ 99.3% (LG) = $18.74/lb
13. Bibliography
A conglomerate of the information on the following websites
was used:
http://www.mii.org/Minerals/photocobalt.html
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele027.html
http://www.chemicool.com/elements/cobalt.html
http://chemistry.about.com/od/elementfacts/a/cobalt.htm
http://len7288.hubpages.com/hub/Uses-of-Cobalt-in-Medicine-
and-Industrial-Manufacturing
http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele027.html
http://www.thecdi.com/cdi/images/documents/facts/COBALT_FA
CTS-Properties_and_Main_Uses.pdf
http://www.metalprices.com/freesite/metals/co/co.asp
http://www.thecdi.com/cobaltfacts.php
http://www.evs.anl.gov/pub/doc/Cobalt.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/health/contaminants/radiation/pdf
s/cobalt.pdf