Antimony

A silvery-white, brittle, nonmetallic chemical element of crystalline structure, found only in combination. It is used in alloys with metals to harden them and increase their resistance to chemical action. Compounds of antimony are used in medicines, pigments, and matches, and for fireproofing.

Symbol: Sb (Latin: stibium)
Atomic number: 51
Atomic weight: 121.76
Density (at room temperature and pressure): 6.91 g/cc
Melting point: 630.63°C
Boiling point: 1,587°C
Main valence: -3, +3, +5
Ground state electron configuration: [Kr]4d¹⁰5s²5p³

Etymologically, "antimony" is from the Medieval Latin antimonium, used by Constantinus Africanus of Salerno (Chaucer's "cursed monk, daun Constantyn" in The Merchant's Tale, line 566) at the end of the eleventh century. The word is of unknown origin. Some have analyzed the French antimoine as anti- + moine, "against the monks" and supported this derivation by an idle tale in which the chemist Basil Valentine poisons several monks using antimony at the end of the fifteenth century. However, this story makes the name originate over four hundred years later than a known usage of it.

Antimony
Symbol: Sb
Atomic Number: 51
Atomic Weight: 121.760
Boiling Point: 1860 K
Melting Point: 903.91 K
Density at 300K: 6.69 g/cm³
Covalent radius: 1.40
Atomic radius: 1.53
Atomic volume: 18.40 cm³/mol
First ionization potental: 8.641 V
Specific heat capacity: 0.207 Jg^-1K^-1
Thermal conductivity: 24.3 Wm^-1K^-1
Electrical conductivity: 2.6 10⁶Ω^-1m^-1
Heat of fusion: 19.83 kJ/mol
Heat of vaporization: 67.97 kJ/mol
Electronegativity: 2.05 (Pauling's)

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An"ti*mo*ny (?; 112), n. [LL. antimonium, of unknown origin.] Chem.

An elementary substance, resembling a metal in its appearance and physical properties, but in its chemical relations belonging to the class of nonmetallic substances. Atomic weight, 120. Symbol, Sb.

⇒ It is of tin-white color, brittle, laminated or crystalline, fusible, and vaporizable at a rather low temperature. It is used in some metallic alloys, as type metal and bell metal, and also for medical preparations, which are in general emetics or cathartics. By ancient writers, and some moderns, the term is applied to native gray ore of antimony, or stibnite (the stibium of the Romans, and the of the Greeks, a sulphide of antimony, from which most of the antimony of commerce is obtained. Cervantite, senarmontite, and valentinite are native oxides of antimony.

 

© Webster 1913.