What is Beryllium used for? Beryllium and beryllium aluminum alloy are highly regarded metals. The metal when found may look like it is aluminum or it may look like a very light colored gold depending on which other metals are mixed with it.
Within the information below, what is beryllium used for today is answered as well as who was the first scrapper/chemist to find a use for beryllium scrap in modern society is discussed.
French chemist and pharmacist Louis-Nicholas Vauquelin discovered a short-lived silvery metal and announced his findings at the Institut de France after Mineralogist René Just Haüy asked Vauquelin to do a chemical analysis of the geometrically identical minerals Beryl and Emerald.
What is Beryllium Used for Today
This metal is alloyed with nickel, aluminium, cobalt, copper and other metals in order to increase hardness and resistance to corrosion and increase their ability to conduct electricity and heat.
It is found in more than thirty mineral species, including bertrandite, beryl, chrysoberyl, phenacite, aquamarine, emerald, and it is a popular mineral used in aviation as a structural material in spacecraft, high-speed aircraft, missiles, communication satellites and as a reflector in nuclear reactors.
That yielded a more acceptable white light. Currently, reducing this metal with purified magnesium produces most of the beryllium found on the market. One of its most important applications is in radiation windows, in x-ray tubes.
This metal provides stiffness, and it has dimensional stability over a wide temperature range; it has lightweight structural components that are useful to the defense and aerospace industries.
Several liquid-fuel rockets have rocket nozzles made of this silvery metal. From 1998-2000, the McLaren Formula One team used Mercedes-Benz engines with pistons made from this metal, but it has since been banned following a protest by Scuderia Ferrari.
The James Webb Space Telescope will have eighteen hexagonal beryllium sections for its mirrors, since these mirrors are better than glass at handling extreme cold.
This metal’s non-magnetic properties allow for maintenance and construction material to go near magnetic resonance imaging machines. Hand tools made of this metal are used to tune the highly magnetic vacuum tubes that are used for generating high levels of microwave power in communication transmitters, and also finds its use in acoustics as in high-frequency speaker drivers.
Other scrap beryllium and beryllium aluminum alloy products that you will find while scrapping include tools, computer parts, phone parts, golf clubs, battery terminals, hacksaws, pipes, tubing and extension springs. Pure beryllium scrap is not commonly found on the curb but products containing this valuable metal are for sure.