How Does Cobalt Work?

Africa and refined in China. Let's learn more about this versatile metal, first prized for its ability to create vivid blue pottery, and now the key to the future of electric cars. We'll start off with a bit of folklore. Cobalt got its name from Gnomes. Centuries ago, miners in the Schnee Barrack Mountains of modern day Germany ran into

a problem. They carved into the mountain side in search of metal rich ore, specifically silver and nickel, but when they tried to smelt the ore into its valuable metal components, some impurity kept spoiling the process. Being the Middle Ages, the miners blamed their smelting issues on troublesome co Belts or Copolds, a medieval German word for gnome or goblin.

According to legend, the Copolds lived in the Schneeberg mines and liked to prank humans by replacing the silver and nickel in their ore with a foul mineral that released poisonous fumes during the smelting process. They were also blamed for Caven's. As with all good ancient legends, the gnome

story had a grain of truth to it. The silver and nickel smelting process was complicated by high levels of naturally occurring cobalt in the Schneberg rock, and a related mineral called cobalite contains arsenic and sulfur, which could be deadly if released in an air tight mind shaft. Cobalt as its own element was first isolated and named in seventeen thirty five by the Swedish chemist Giore Brandt, an early critic of alchemy and probably not a fan of

gnomes either. Although cobalt didn't get its name until the eighteenth century, Cobalt based pigments and dyes have been prized for their rich blue hue for millennia. The Cobalt Institute says that pottery and glass containing cobalt based glazes has been recovered from Egyptian tombs dating back at least two thousand, six hundred years, and the famous blue Chinese porcelain from the Tang and Ming dynasties were also glazed with cobalt

based minerals. Pure cobalt is a shiny gray color, but it can be transformed into a bright blue powder by taking certain cobalt oxides that is, compounds of cobalt plus oxygen and treating them with a process called calcination, in which they're exposed to temperatures in excess of two thousand and twelve degrees fahrenheit, which is one thousand, one hundred

degrees celsius. The striking color known as cobalt blue, is made by heating cobalt oxide with aluminum silicates at two thousand, one hundred and ninety two degrees fahrenheit that's one thousand, two hundred degrees celsius. A host of other hues mazzarine blue, willow blue, blue black, can be made by combining cobalt oxides with other minerals. Small amounts of blue cobalt hues are also used as a d colorizer to cancel out

yellowish hints in glass from iron contamination. Cobalt was almost exclusively used as an ingredient in pigments and paints up until the twentieth century. In nineteen sixteen, more than seventy of all cobalt mined and refined in the world, which was only four forty tons by the way, was used as oxides for colorings. Today, half the world's cobalt is used for rechargeable batteries. The rechargeable lithium ion batteries in your smartphone, tablet, and electric vehicle run at least in

part on cobalt. Cobalt is one of the key ingredients, along with other metals like lithium, nickel, and manganese, inside these fast charging, long lasting batteries that power our digital lives. About fifty of the cobalt produced worldwide is used for rechargeable batteries. Cobalt is found in the cathode, that is, the positively charged trode of lithium ion batteries. When a lithium ion batteries charged, lithium ions flow from the cathode

to the negatively charged anode, where they're stored. When the batteries discharged, the ions flow back to the cathode and electrons are released to power the phone or electric motor. Cobalt has to innate properties that make it ideal for battery applications, thermal stability and high energy density. Cathodes made with cobalt won't overheat easily or catch fire, which is a major safety issue, and they'll also be able to

store and transform more energy. Cobalt is not only found in the cathodes of lithium ion batteries, but also in other popular rechargeable batteries like nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride batteries. Since cobalt currently makes up between ten and thirty three percent of rechargeable cathodes, the automobile industry is going to need a lot more cobalt to power the

future of electric vehicles. One analysis predicts the cobalt demand from passenger vehicles alone quadruple from more than twenty seven thousand, five hundred tons in to over one and ten thousand tons by and Furthermore, when aerospace engineers need a material that can withstand the intense heat inside a jet or rocket engine, they turn to super alloys made with cobalt. Super alloys are high performance metals that earn their flashy

name from extremely high resistance to wear and heat. Nickel based super alloys outperform cobalt alloys for stress resistance for temperatures reaching up to one thousand, seven hundred and six degrees fahrenheit that's thy degrees celsius. Beyond that extreme temperature, though, cobalt based super alloys really show their stuff. Cobalt has a higher melting point than nickel, and cobalt super alloys

are more resistant to heat corrosion. That's why you'll find cobalt super alloys in the stationary fins of gas turbine engines, which take the brunt of the intense heat generated by

jet engines without wearing down and failing. But one of the main reasons cobalt landed on the U S Department of Interiors list of Critical Minerals for National Security is that half of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or the d r C. As a report from the U S Geological Survey explains, the d r C has a poor history of government corruption,

human rights violations, and environmental damage. Related to cobalt mining, and it's not only human rights groups like Amnesty International that are concerned with unsafe and unethical labor practices related to unregulated cobalt mining in the d r C. The political and environmental instability of the d r C means that a huge chunk of the cobalt supply chain is

vulnerable to disruption. If the high tech economy relies on a steady supply of cobalt, largely to be used in rechargeable batteries, then troubles in the d r C could

slow economic growth worldwide. The U S Geological Survey report also notes that China is the main refiner of cobalt and one of the biggest financial backers of large cobalt mining operations in the d r C. As it stands, the u US tech sector is hugely dependent on an unstable source in DRC and a contentious trade partner in China for its cobalt supply, which accounts for the fact

that the US is getting into cobalt mining. According to figures from the United States consumed ten percent of the world's cobalt while producing less than one percent of the global cobalt supply. Cobalt isn't everywhere, but it also isn't a particularly rare mineral. It ranks thirty second in abundance in the Earth's crust. Only two mines in Canada and Morocco can extract pure cobalt ore, while the majority is

extracted as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. One of the world's richest cobalt deposits is in the Central African copper Belt in the DRC. The United States is not blessed with a lot of high grade cobalt deposits, which makes it trickier to mine profitably. The mining industry also has complained of a slow permitting process to allow

for mineral exploration, both on shore and offshore. The Trump administration has directed the Department of Interior to speed up the permitting process in an effort to decrease America's reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals like cobalt. Despite permitting and geological obstacles, there has been some progress in US cobalt mining. In the Eagle Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula began mining nickel and copper, with cobalt and other minerals

as a byproduct. And America's first mind dedicated to cobalt is getting ready to go into production in in Idaho. Oh And one more fact. Cobalt is an essential micronutrient in animal and human diets. Ruminants like cows transformed cobalt into cobal amen, also known as vitamin B twelve. The food with the highest concentration of cobalt is chocolate. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How

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