Beryllium (Be) Properties

Beryllium (Be) is a light metal (although its density is 3.5 times that of lithium, it is still much lighter than aluminum, with the same volume of beryllium and aluminum, the mass of beryllium is only 2/3 of that of aluminum). At the same time, the melting point of beryllium is very high, as high as 1278 ℃. Beryllium has very good corrosion resistance and high strength. A spring made of beryllium can withstand more than 20 billion impacts. At the same time, it also resists magnetism, and also has the characteristics of not producing sparks during processing. As a metal, its properties are quite good, but why is beryllium rarely seen in life?

It turned out that although beryllium itself has superior properties, its powder form has a strong lethal toxicity. Even the workers who produce it have to wear protective measures such as protective clothing in order to obtain powdered beryllium that can be used for processing. Coupled with its expensive price, there are few opportunities for it to appear on the market. Nonetheless, there are some areas where it is not bad money will find its presence. For example, the following will be introduced:

Because beryllium (Be) is light and strong, it is often used in defense applications, such as as part of missiles, rockets, and satellites (often used to make gyroscopes). Here, money is no longer a problem, and lightness and high strength have become its trump card in this field. Here, too, handling toxic materials becomes the last thing to worry about.

Another property of beryllium makes it an important tool in today’s most lucrative fields. Beryllium does not produce sparks during friction and collision. A certain percentage of beryllium and copper are formed into high-strength, non-sparking alloys. Such alloys play a very important role in oil wells and flammable gas workplaces. In such places, sparks from iron tools can lead to huge disasters, which are huge fireballs. And beryllium just prevents it from happening.

Beryllium has other exotic uses: It is transparent to X-rays, so it can be used as a window in an X-ray tube. X-ray tubes need to be strong enough to maintain a perfect vacuum, yet thin enough to allow faint X-rays to pass through.

Beryllium is so special that it keeps people at a distance and at the same time leaves other metals out of reach.


Post time: Sep-07-2022