Strontium

Description of Strontium (Sr)

Strontium is a soft, silvery-white or silvery-yellow alkaline earth metal. Natural strontium is a mixture of four stable isotopes — Sr-84, Sr-86, Sr-87 and Sr-88 — and is primarily found within the minerals celestite and strontianite. 

Like other alkali metals, strontium is highly reactive chemically and reacts with both air and water. When exposed to air, it burns with a bright red flame. When combined with water, strontium gives off hydrogen gas and strontium hydroxide — a strong irritant. 

Applications of Strontium (Sr)

In the man­u­fac­ture of fire­works, stron­tium car­bon­ate, ni­trate and per­chlo­rate are used to col­or flames a crim­son-red col­or. An al­loy of mag­ne­sium and stron­tium has pow­er­ful py­rophoric qual­i­ties and finds ap­pli­ca­tion in fire­works for in­cen­di­ary and flar­ing com­pounds, Stron­tium is added to cop­per and sev­er­al of its al­loys and to lead al­loy bat­ter­ies, and is used for the desul­fu­r­iza­tion of cast iron, cop­per and steel, and also for the re­duc­tion of ura­ni­um.

Al­loys of stron­tium with tin and lead are used for cast­ing con­duc­tors of ac­cu­mu­la­tor bat­ter­ies. Al­loys of stron­tium and cad­mi­um are used for the an­odes of bat­tery cells. Hard fer­rites of stron­tium are wide­ly used as ma­te­ri­als for the man­u­fac­ture of per­ma­nent mag­nets.

Stron­tium uranate plays an im­por­tant role in pro­duc­ing hy­dro­gen by the ther­mo­chem­i­cal method (atom­ic hy­dro­gen en­er­gy), and meth­ods are be­ing de­vel­oped for ura­ni­um fis­sion in stron­tium uri­nate, to pro­duce heat in the break­down of wa­ter into hy­dro­gen and oxy­gen.

Stron­tium ox­ide is used as a com­po­nent in su­per­con­duc­tive ce­ram­ics. In the sol­id so­lu­tion of the ox­ides of oth­er al­ka­li earth met­als – bar­i­um and cal­ci­um (BaO, CaO) – it is used as an ac­tive lay­er of in­di­rect­ly heat­ed cath­odes in vac­u­um elec­tron­ic de­vices. Stron­tium flu­o­ride is used as a com­po­nent of sol­id-state flu­o­rine bat­ter­ies with a high en­er­gy ca­pac­i­ty and en­er­gy den­si­ty.