Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 14:16:04 GMT -5
And is magnetic. This material is not magnetic. Thanks, @shotgunner, I thought maybe the sample piece mentioned in the article I linked may not exhibit much magnetism since it contained 23% of iron, but guess it would show magnetism?: "industry standards are set for common impurities, including iron and aluminium." I hope you find out what it is! Jan; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FerrosiliconIndicates that a very high silicon ratio would bring the specific gravity very low. To be a gravity this high we'd need ~15% silicon and the material would be magnetic. At least as far as I can tell by googling. I suppose I could do the water test to look for hydrogen bubbling.
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Post by gingerkid on Feb 1, 2015 14:20:06 GMT -5
Thanks for pointing that out, @shotgunner.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 14:24:25 GMT -5
Thanks for pointing that out, @shotgunner. I think I need to move on to some chemistry. I'll be studying different tests I can do with common chemicals.
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Post by snowmom on Feb 4, 2015 8:54:49 GMT -5
watching with interest.
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Post by catmandewe on Feb 4, 2015 11:00:49 GMT -5
platinum?
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Post by orrum on Feb 4, 2015 11:14:40 GMT -5
Space alien composite spaceship crash debris?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Feb 4, 2015 12:06:32 GMT -5
Space alien composite spaceship crash debris? Dang truth. I hope they find one with SG of about 600. Then aliens would sure come to mind.
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Mark K
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Post by Mark K on Feb 4, 2015 12:11:18 GMT -5
All I know is that it was really heavy and the slab looked like a brake pad.
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Post by snowmom on Feb 4, 2015 13:03:58 GMT -5
I'm casting my vote with manganese of some form after doing a few searches. It seems to fill most of the bill. Keep us posted!
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blackout5783
starting to spend too much on rocks
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Post by blackout5783 on Feb 5, 2015 12:52:07 GMT -5
Thanks for pointing that out, @shotgunner. I think I need to move on to some chemistry. I'll be studying different tests I can do with common chemicals. Probably the easiest place to start is with muriatic acid (conc HCl). If you can get any to dissolve, the color may give it away. Iron chloride is a yellow-orange shade, and manganese chloride is more of a pink-purple. You may need to heat it to get it to go, and if you go that route definitely work outside. HCl fumes are not something that you want to inhale.
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Post by Pat on Feb 5, 2015 13:13:52 GMT -5
I'm hoping for a meteorite, so Ed can retire verrrry comfortably!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 13:40:34 GMT -5
I think I need to move on to some chemistry. I'll be studying different tests I can do with common chemicals. Probably the easiest place to start is with muriatic acid (conc HCl). If you can get any to dissolve, the color may give it away. Iron chloride is a yellow-orange shade, and manganese chloride is more of a pink-purple. You may need to heat it to get it to go, and if you go that route definitely work outside. HCl fumes are not something that you want to inhale. Its definitely not iron, but nickel chloride is green! Yes that's my plan. Gonna buy some pool acid today. Need to eat first.
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leadbelly713
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Post by leadbelly713 on Feb 5, 2015 13:41:03 GMT -5
The second pic looks to have a hackly texture, like massive stibnite/antimony. The S.G. would be in the ball park, but the mohs is only 3 to 3 1/2 on above mentioned minerals, but if mixed with other minerals the hardness can increase. When you put the torch to it did it give off a dense white smoke? Robert,
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 13:45:41 GMT -5
The second pic looks to have a hackly texture, like stibnite/antimony. The S.G. would be in the ball park, but the mohs is only 3 to 3 1/2 on above mentioned minerals, but if mixed with other minerals the hardness can increase. Robert, Thanks for the input. I'll look into antimony if HCl fails to result nickel/manganese. From wikipedia looks almost EXACTLY like my broken off piece. Hackly break and all. The only dif is the black oxide produced when the piece was torched to red heat. Black oxide seems to point to manganese.
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Mark K
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Post by Mark K on Feb 5, 2015 15:04:42 GMT -5
I think if it was antimony, the torch would have melted it.
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Post by orrum on Feb 5, 2015 15:09:06 GMT -5
No reaction when I torched it other than it was very difficult to heat it to a red color. It turned from silvery colored to black with no smoke or smell.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 15:29:54 GMT -5
I streaked it onto some porcelain tile. Made a small pile of powdered "Ed's Mystery Stone" put on a drop of 31.5% Hydrochloric Acid. Nothing. Put the tile on a stovetop burner and gently heated it until the acid was boiled away, ~5 minutes. No change. Hmmm... All of the manganese chloride production techniques mentioned online start with oxide or carbonate. Nothing straight from metal. blackout5783 my chemist friend. Any advice on how to proceed? Sulfuric is available. So is powdered nitric. Looking for qualitative method for elemental identification. We do have a film flame spectrograph at class, but as of tuesday it was "broken".
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blackout5783
starting to spend too much on rocks
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Post by blackout5783 on Feb 5, 2015 20:27:55 GMT -5
Well, you could whip up some aqua regia with nitric and HCl (1:3 mix) . That would dissolve damn near any metal with the exception of titanium, tungsten, tantalum, hafnium, and a couple other metals that are uncommon/rare. If you decide to give the aqua regia a shot, you absolutely have to work outside (unless you have a fume hood) because the mix quickly starts to turn yellow and give off a yellow - green gas. You really don't want to get a whiff of that. It's a mix of nitrosyl chloride and chlorine gas. Very bad stuff.
You'd be much more likely to produce a chloride of whatever it is this way, although safety is more of an issue than with just the conc HCl.
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Post by stoner on Feb 5, 2015 22:28:49 GMT -5
Well people, we've been barking up a wrong tree. My wife works in the Aerospace industry and she has a friend who has a masters degree in Metallurgy. She took the slab we cut to him and his finding is it is…..drumroll please….CAST IRON. He basis this on the porosity(5-10%), the casting marks, it's semi brittle(when we hit it with a hammer it broke off easily), and the color(dull gray) indicates a higher carbon content, which makes it very hard also. Cast Iron is tough to cut, but if it's whacked, it'll break. The military used the heaviest, cheapest metal in their bombs, something that would burst apart on impact, but be heavy enough to penetrate an object.
Colbalt and Nickel are only made in a super nova, hence the nickel and gemstone meteorites.
Sorry I couldn't have something more exotic, but it's been a good conversation piece. I really feel badly about your saw blade Tony. Who could have known? So I guess I'll just have to make my fortune elsewhere!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2015 23:00:07 GMT -5
Well people, we've been barking up a wrong tree. My wife works in the Aerospace industry and she has a friend who has a masters degree in Metallurgy. She took the slab we cut to him and his finding is it is…..drumroll please….CAST IRON. He basis this on the porosity(5-10%), the casting marks, it's semi brittle(when we hit it with a hammer it broke off easily), and the color(dull gray) indicates a higher carbon content, which makes it very hard also. Cast Iron is tough to cut, but if it's whacked, it'll break. The military used the heaviest, cheapest metal in their bombs, something that would burst apart on impact, but be heavy enough to penetrate an object. Cobalt and Nickel are only made in a super nova, hence the nickel and gemstone meteorites. Sorry I couldn't have something more exotic, but it's been a good conversation piece. I really feel badly about your saw blade Tony. Who could have known? So I guess I'll just have to make my fortune elsewhere! This expert needs to explain the LACK OF MAGNETIC ATTRACTION in this cast iron sample. I am guessing it did not ruin Tony's blade, but instead mucked it up with soft metal. Like psilomelane. No way even fully hard cast iron does a damn thing to diamonds. Diamonds simply are many (4-5) orders of magnitude harder, in a real world sense. I do admit cast iron has a similar specific gravity of 7.03+. Further rersearch into cast iron reveals this tidbit I contacted an old friend. I used to work in a metallurgical lab. He agreed to check it on his Xray fluoresence machine. Shhhh... dont tell no one. More to come.
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