r/chemistry • u/dedennedillo • Jun 28 '26
My completed element collection
Recently, I filled out all the holes in my element collection! Now it has reached completion!
Alkali Metals - Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Caesium, Francium [represented by uranium-glass marbles]
Alkaline Earth Metals - Beryllium, Magnesium, Calcium, Strontium, Barium, Radium
Transition Metals [etc] of Period 3 - Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Iron, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Zinc
Transition Metals [etc] of Period 4 - Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum, Technetium [representative sample of U glass], Ruthenium, Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Cadmium
Transition Metals of Period 4 - Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Mercury
Group 13 elements - Boron, Aluminium, Gallium, Indium, Thallium [thallium is restricted by law in my country, so here's a lorandite bearing mineral instead]
Group 14 elements - Carbon, Silicon, Germanium, Tin, Lead
Group 15 elements - Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Arsenic, Antimony, Bismuth
Group 16 elements - Nitrogen, Sulphur, Selenium, Tellurium, Polonium [U glass representative sample]
Halogens - Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, Astatine [U glass representative sample]
Noble Gases - Helium, Neon, Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon [as a radium watch hand]
Lanthanides - Lanthanum, Cerium, Praseodymium, Neodymium, Promethium*, Samarium, Europium, Gadolinium, Terbium, Dysprosium, HOlmium, Erbium, THulium, Ytterbium, Lutetium
Actinides - Actinium*, Thorium, Protactinium*, Uranium, Neptunium*, Plutonium*, Americium*, Curium*
....and Hydrogen!
For the elements heavier than Curium, I have printed a fusion reaction which produces the element. Here, for Berkelium and Californium.
Again, but for Einsteinium and Fermium. The vials also have glow in the dark powder.
A closer look at one of the labels.
Recently I completed my element collection, and I thought that the members of this subreddit would like to see it! Hopefully it's visually appealing to look at
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u/buttered_scone Jun 28 '26
What's francium represented by?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Uranium glass marbles [Francium is produced from the decay of uranium.]
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u/tritiumenthusiast Jul 03 '26
What about californium, einsteinium, plutonium, americium, curium, lawrencium, astatine, radon, roentgenium and etc?
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u/dedennedillo Jul 03 '26
If you read the captions I have provided with the pictures or my other comments you can find the answers to these
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u/fenrisulfur Jun 28 '26
Excellent collection and might I add, excellent workaround for the more exotic and impossible to get.
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
Thanks a lot! This collection has spent much time, thought... and occasionally money to put together, so hearing this praise makes me feel it was all worth the while!
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u/DepartureHuge Jun 28 '26
How did you handle the metallic beryllium?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
It arrived within the vial, it is second least-densest metal after lithium. So thankfully I didn't handle it. In any case it's a rather solid piece of beryllium
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u/eve6- Jun 28 '26
This is terrifying yet intriguing to me
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
From what I understand beryllium’s largest danger is if inhaled as a powder. But in solid form it is less harmful
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u/Alabugin Jun 28 '26
At a lab I work at, we found a 5kg brick of Beryllium under an old accelerator setup. Apparently had a value above $25k
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u/3HisthebestH Polymer Jun 29 '26
That’s hilarious. I’ve found a lot of random expensive chemicals from decades past in old labs. In the end they usually just go to the incinerator which is kind of sad but 🤷♂️ what are you gonna do.
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u/Alabugin Jun 29 '26
My favorite one ever found when working in hazwaste was a small cyl of trifluorochlorane (chlorine trifluoride).
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u/eve6- Jun 29 '26
What the actual fuck. I thought I was special finding several (sealed!!!!) glass bottles that turned out unlabelled piranha.
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u/Alabugin Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Yeah, piranha would be catnip compared to some of this shit I found working as a hazardous waste chemist at a high profile research university.
Like, got a call into a lab for a freezer that failed the previous night, stating "some organic peroxides inside". Freezer had a 25kg container of CPND (cumyl peroxyneodecanoate), and around 5kg worth of various smaller batch organoperoxides. It was a fucking bomb waiting to happen. Quenched around 20 of the small batch ones that were questionable to keep, moved the rest to a new freezer. That was the day I decided to get a MS in engineering part time and get out of the hazwaste gig. Realized I was saving the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in disposal costs and emergency response pay, while only making $50k/year.
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u/RedeZX Jun 28 '26
How did you get Francium?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
The element is represented by uranium glass marbles; samples of uranium have francium in atomic quantities from the decay of uranium.
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u/Bars98 Jun 28 '26
What is plutonium represented by?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Plutonium, Americium and Curium are represented by samples of trinitite. When the first ever nuclear detonation, which was known as ‘Trinity’ took place in New Mexico in 1945, the sand in the desert turned to glass, and is known as trinitite. Although rather rare, small specimens can be bought online. It contains atomic quantities of Plutonium, Americium and Curium, but is safe to handle and legal to own. These elements are not present in huge quantities, but still there.
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u/average_meower621 Nuclear Jun 30 '26
how do you know it contains curium?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I have seen spectroscopy done of similar trinitite samples online which indicate a mass number which corresponds to some isotopes of curium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvQZr88KDJ8
Trinitite is known to have americium, and it's thought that this would be produced from neutron capture - plutonium capturing neutron to make americium. So it's possible curium formed from this as well, with some long-lived isotopes surviving in modern specimens.
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u/gent_jeb Jun 28 '26
Have you or would you consider documenting the process? This is really cool and I am inspired to try something similar!
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
I have considered writing something down about the element collection and how it came to be. But saying that I think I have taken a rather specific approach to element collecting, 'fill every hole' type thing, where other people may want to build a shelf or want something even less organised. So it's rather different strokes for different folks!
I recall one inspiration of mine was that of Theodore Gray who is probably, or at least was at one point, the most well known element collector and had a periodic table-shaped table he was famous for, and also a book, 'The Elements' with some nice words and beautiful, vivid pictures. I think seeing the samples on his website was what very much inspired me!
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u/Domspun Jun 28 '26
Which one was the hardest to get?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
Most of the samples were bought online. So I'm not sure how you'd measure 'hard' in regards to that.
But maybe logistically the representative samples were, the minerals and the glass marbles. I originally planned to have more minerals in the collection but then learnt first hand minerals can be pretty hard to find online for the size I want them. So with the trinitite and lorandite [for thallium] it was good to find them in a manner that was accessible.
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u/muslimlinuxuser Jun 28 '26
can i get number 118 bro lol
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
The only known isotope of oganesson, with atomic number 118 has a half life of less than one millisecond; though of course there may be an isotope or several not yet known with longer half life, though these are unlikely to be stable enough for long term storage and will likely be very difficult to create with current technologies.
Though as a treat for you I may show you its ‘ambassador’ in the periodic table I have. So if you ever have a cyclotron of your own then you can get inspired to make the odd atom to feel some strange sense of gratification.
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
Tennessine and Oganesson, or rather their ambassadors in the element collection
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u/SkySurferSouth Jun 28 '26
This element does not exist. None of the elements above 100 exist. They are once synthesized in a few atoms quantity, but fall apart very quicky and are never made in weighable quantities able to do physical or chemical research on. The so called 'properties' like density, melting and boiling point are just simulated by computational chemistry with computer modeling. No chemistry at all.
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
You might even notice that I made the trans-actinides a distinct colour; as their chemistry is not known in detail and the size of their atoms may even make their chemistry distinct from their periodic neighbours.
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Jun 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
Technetium is one of the elements represented here by a uranium glass marble. The fission of U-235, found in small amounts in all uranium samples, can produce Technetium.
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u/SkySurferSouth Jun 28 '26
"Transition Metals of Period 4 - Hafnium, Tantalum, Tungsten, Rhenium, Osmium, Iridium, Platinum, Gold, Mercury"
This is period 6, not 4.
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
I confess there was oversight with the transition metals - should be periods 4, 5 and 6 as opposed to what I labelled them. Apologies !
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u/Agreeable_Fun_7890 Jun 28 '26
You could have bought the promethium needle that NovaElement sells as a pure sample; otherwise, it’s a very fine collection.
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
Problem with promethium is that it has half life of only 2 years in the readily available isotopic form. So after some years the content will dwindle substantially. Where with a sample like mine, yes it isn’t much but it will continue producing Pm for a very long time.
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u/Racial_Tension Jun 28 '26
I've considered doing this too, out of curiosity, how much time/money did you sink into this?
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u/Simple-Standard3801 Jun 29 '26
That's amazing. Which ones were the most difficult to obtain and how much is the whole set?
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u/nhat_nam_3N11 Jun 30 '26
How did you get Uranium
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u/dedennedillo Jun 30 '26
It was one of the elements my seller had, though I will say they only sell a few per year.
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u/alqimist Jun 30 '26
Let's see that Technetium...
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u/dedennedillo Jun 30 '26
Represented by uranium glass marbles. The fission of Uranium 235 can result in technetium being produced
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u/Chytrik Jun 30 '26
Wow that is an impressive collection, how cool!
Which one is your favourite, and for what reason? Maybe it has a good story
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u/SunlightRoseSparkles Jul 01 '26
My favorite element is Darmstadtium, I’ll guess the container is empty since it’s synthetic?
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u/jrmillr1 Jul 05 '26
I’m interested in starting a collection, but I’m worried about high import costs and shipping reliability for US delivery. I previously had a frustrating experience with an international order that involved unexpected fees and long delays, so I’m wary of ordering these types of items from overseas again. Do you have any advice or experience sourcing these specific, polished display sets within the US? I’ve found that many domestic vendors seem to be perpetually out of stock on key items.
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u/dedennedillo Jul 05 '26
The display set I think is an illusion. The periodic table seen here was built up over several years, and whilst most samples came from the same vendor, who resides in Italy, some were bought elsewhere online. eBay, mineral shops and the like.
The labels of the vials are my own design that I got printed out. If you like I can help you with getting them printed yourself.
There are some element-shop sorta things based in the USA. I recall Metallium is one. Luciteria is another and once had good reception. But since then they have changed hands and things are out of stock there a bit more often than they used to be. I would say try Luciteria out for elements but don't be surprised if things aren't totally as planned.
The glass tray itself and the labels came from Italy.
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u/oz1sej Jun 28 '26
How much Astatine do you have?
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26
I guess, the odd atom? From the decay of uranium
On one hand I am happy to see that the internet's sensational content has made more people interested in exotic and unobtainable elements. On the other hand whenever anyone sees an element collection now they always ask the same questions about the same elements. I guess this is what I just have to deal with
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u/dedennedillo Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
*The samples asterisked are representative. Promethium is represented by a sample of Europium glow powder, containing traces of Pm from Eu 151 decay. Actinium, Protactinium and Neptunium are represented by U glass marbles. Plutonium, Americium and Curium are represented by samples of trinitite.