It is not found in nature, but is incredibly sought after - this is how you can describe californium. The element, discovered in the 20th century, tops the price ranking of metals. One gram of material costs millions of dollars.
When many people hear about an expensive metal, they think of gold or platinum. But jewelry raw materials do not top the price list. Industrial metals are overtaking it. The isotope osmium-187 was included in the Guinness Book of Records. They offered him $200,000. In its normal form, this metal costs about $10,000 per gram. It is noticeably ahead of California. The cost of a gram 4 years ago ranged from 6.5 to 10 million dollars. And today it has not fallen in price.
Rhino horn
Image: Glen Carrie/Unsplash
- Cost: from 60 to 110 dollars Vietnam seizes 125kg of smuggled rhino horns worth $7.5m / The Guardian per gram.
- Where to find: in Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia and Malaysia). In nature, the substance is usually found attached to rhinoceros. The animals themselves can be found in Africa and Asia.
In China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, Why Does a Rhino Horn Cost $300,000?
Because Vietnam Thinks It Cures Cancer and Hangovers / The Atlantic, that the horn cures cancer, fever and other diseases, and also serves as an aphrodisiac. Therefore, African poachers regularly kill rhinoceroses and sell their remains on the black market. According to rough estimates, Rhino horn smuggled as jewelery / BBC News, since 2007, at least 7,100 of these animals have been killed in Africa, and about 25,000 remain. Recently, however, the demand for the product has decreased because China has begun to fight this trade. From a medical point of view, swallowing crushed horn is no more beneficial than biting your nails. After all, rhinoceros horns are made of keratin. Their treatment of fever or cancer is an unsubstantiated superstition. So the rhinoceroses are dying completely in vain.
Interesting facts: what is even more valuable than gold?
Some interesting facts: many different things cost more than gold, for example, rhinoceros horn, which can be bought for $110 per gram. This price is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to obtain, and there are fewer and fewer animals. But the value of the horn can also be called overestimated, because it mainly consists of keratin, which is also found in human hair.
Rhinoceros
Antimatter
Antimatter is the most unstable substance and is extremely difficult to produce. It is a very powerful substance that allows you to produce a lot of energy. It has not been fully studied. Its estimated value reaches 62 trillion dollars per gram.
Antimatter
Diamond
A diamond is a perfectly crafted and polished diamond. It has perfect shine, perfect shape, perfect look. The cost per gram reaches 50 thousand dollars or more than 3 million rubles.
Diamond
Plutonium
It is a rather expensive substance due to the overly complex creation process. It is also extremely important because it is used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons and in nuclear power plants.
Plutonium
Rhodium
Image: Alchemist‑hp / Wikimedia Commons
- Cost: approximately $363 The price of rhodium has reached another record, exceeding $10,000 per ounce / MetalTorg per gram.
- Where to find: in native platinum, mainly in South Africa, but also in Canada, Colombia and Russia.
Rhodium Rhodium / Popular Library of Chemical Elements is the most expensive and hardest of all noble metals. It costs more than gold and platinum, but looks like silver.
Rhodium is not used to create jewelry - it is too expensive. In addition, it is very fragile. Instead, it is applied to the surface of jewelry to increase its durability. This is called rhodium plating.
The element is also used in electronics and the glass industry, to create neutron flux detectors in nuclear reactors, and as a catalyst in the production of nitric acid.
LSD
Image: Coaster420/Wikimedia Commons
- Cost: About $3,000 DEA Field Division Assessments/Schaffer Library of Drug Policy per gram in purest crystalline form.
- Where to find it: it’s better not to look for it.
LSD is d-lysergic acid diethylamide, a psychedelic that causes powerful hallucinations in people. It was discovered by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann and immediately used it - first by accident, and then got involved.
LSD is made from ergot, a fungus that causes ergotism, a disease that causes hallucinations, gangrene and convulsions. The creation of LSD is illegal in most countries of the world, which is why the substance is so expensive.
Tritium
Image: GOKLuLe/Wikimedia Commons
- Cost: $30,000 Tritium Supply Considerations / Los Alamos National Laboratory per gram.
- Where to find: Tritium Extraction Facility, Savannah River, USA; PA "Mayak", Ozyorsk, Russia; Ontario Hydro, Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, Canada. It occurs in nature in the upper layers of the atmosphere when particles of cosmic radiation collide with the nuclei of nitrogen atoms.
The most common substance in the Universe is hydrogen. That's why it's so cheap. It’s even funnier that the radioactive isotope of hydrogen, tritium, on the contrary, is quite expensive.
Tritium is produced in nuclear reactors by irradiating lithium-6 with neutrons. The creation of one kilogram of this substance costs Tritium Supply Considerations / Los Alamos National Laboratory approximately $30 million.
Tritium is a transparent, invisible gas. Related to this is the story Deuterium and tritium: hydrogen, but not the same / Science and Life, which is told by employees of the High-Tech Research Institute of Inorganic Materials. They say that once officials came there for an inspection and demanded to show them tritium. The scientists were unable to do this and received a scolding. But in general, tritium glows in concentrated form, which is why it is added to key fobs, watch hands and medical devices.
It is also used as fuel in thermonuclear reactors and used to power hydrogen bombs. Tritium is also used to power low-power generators, for example in medical devices.
California: the most expensive metal on Earth
Californian is an element more expensive than platinum and titanium; its cost is not even comparable to them. Californium (Cf) - obtained chemically. This is an element of the periodic table. It is white with a silvery sheen, but it is impossible to see it this way, since it is in very minute quantities. California is the most expensive metal on the planet.
For example, when designing powerful radioisotope generators that use uranium and a number of transuranium elements as fuel, the critical mass parameter limits the power of such a device.
In the calculations and production of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, the critical mass parameter significantly affects both the design of the explosive device, as well as its cost and shelf life. In the case of the design and construction of a nuclear reactor, the critical mass parameters also limit both the minimum and maximum dimensions of the future reactor. Of all 17 California isotopes, the 252nd is the most studied. It is extremely toxic, but contains an incredible amount of energy released during the process of atomic fission: 1 gram produces 2.4 billion neutrons per second, which is the same power as a small nuclear reactor.
Californium was discovered in 1950 by Glenn Seaborg in a reactor during the fission of radioactive elements at the University of California at Berkeley (USA). The metal is soft, ductile, and easy to cut with a blade.
On our planet, Californium is mined only in two places: in the USA at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and in Russia in Dmitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk Region (RIAR).
Since 1961, an artificial, very expensive metal, curium (Cm), has been used to produce Cf. In a nuclear reactor, curium is irradiated from a year to a year and a half. Californium is then isolated.
Initially, invisible (only a few atoms) California was obtained in reactors in which radioactive elements were split under the influence of neutrons. It is logical that the resulting metal is also radioactive and it arose as a result of a clearly directed nuclear reaction. After 8 years, it was possible to obtain the chemical compound California in a more solid state.
Californium - seventeen combined isotopes, naturally radioactive.
An interesting fact is that all isotopes have radically different half-lives, from 2.6 to 900 years, and also have an extremely low critical mass. Critical mass - in nuclear physics, the minimum mass of fissile material required to initiate a self-sustaining fission chain reaction.
The neutron multiplication factor in such an amount of matter is greater than one or equal to one. The dimensions corresponding to the critical mass are also called critical. The value of the critical mass depends on the properties of the substance (such as fission and radiation capture cross sections), density, amount of impurities, shape of the product, as well as the environment. For example, the presence of neutron reflectors can greatly reduce the critical mass.
In nuclear energy, the critical mass parameter is decisive in the design and calculations of a wide variety of devices that use in their design various isotopes or mixtures of isotopes of elements that, under certain conditions, are capable of nuclear fission with the release of colossal amounts of energy.
They get up to 100 micrograms per year, and its supply on the planet is 5-10 grams. The cost of 1 gram of metal is 6.5 million dollars. Of all the Cf isotopes, the 252nd is the most studied. It is very toxic, but contains a huge charge of energy.
The 252 California isotope is created in laboratory conditions, or more precisely in protected nuclear reactors, by splitting products irradiated with radioactive plutonium, curium or neutrons. Each stage of the production of the most expensive metal in the world involves the disintegration and transformation of the original element into an intermediate state - an isotope of another metallic element, which forms a new isotope as a result of its decay.
It is impossible for California-252 to decay. As a result of the transformation, only 0.3% of plutonium nuclei do not decay, so to obtain 1 gram of California, 10 kg of plutonium is required. In a year, the world receives up to 100 micrograms of such an “energy concentrate” as californium-252, and according to some estimates, on our planet, its reserve does not exceed 5 grams. California-252 is the most expensive and scientifically important metal.
Californians are ordered from Türkiye, China, and Australia. But since the production technology is long, buyers stand in line.
Application California: in developments devoted to the separation of nuclei, the discovery and exploration of deep and near space in the process of finding useful elements (gold and silver), to find layers of the earth containing water and oil, to determine the integrity of nuclear reactors, aircraft and spacecraft.
The use of a neutron chamber with a radiation source - California-252, will make it possible to find even super-packed drugs hidden from detection by X-rays. Despite its toxicity, it is used in medicine as a source of healing radiation that kills infected and diseased body tissues.
When the slightest amount is introduced into body tissues, all atypical cells are destroyed, while healthy cells are not susceptible to irradiation.
Also used in radiation therapy. A microparticle of an isotope placed on the tip of a needle can have a targeted effect on the tumor. When a small amount is injected into a tumor, its cells are destroyed without damaging healthy tissue.
Thanks to these discoveries, neutron radiosurgery has become a feasible and proven method of treating common diseases.
This extravagant metal is also used in metallurgy, chemical and oil industries.
With the help of californium, structural defects are determined without dismantling it, for example, an airplane or a spacecraft.
The isotope californium-252 is a particularly rare metal with enormous potential. Almost any reactor can collect source material for its further conversion into californium-252, which may in the future affect the reduction in the cost of the rarest and most expensive metal - “energy concentrate”, and making nanotechnology even closer.
Scientists believe that California, like other rare earth metals, is a thousand times more abundant on the Moon than on Earth, which is one of the reasons for the future colonization of the Moon.
Painite
Image: Robert M. Lavinsky/Wikimedia Commons
- Value: up to $300,000 Five Gems Worth More Than Diamonds / GNJ Pawn Big per gram or up to $60,000 per carat.
- Where to find: Natural deposits in Mogok and Kachin counties in Myanmar.
If you think that diamonds are a girl's best friend, then here's something more expensive than Painite / California Institute of Technology than any diamond. This is painite - a mineral from the class of borates (Sacha Baron Cohen has nothing to do with this, as salts of orthoboric acid are called), the rarest and most expensive in the world.
Until 2005, only 25 pieces of painite were known, scattered in private collections and museums. Later, a deposit was discovered in Myanmar, which brought several more crystals, albeit of worse quality. The color of painite varies from ruby-red to brown-orange.
Zolgensma
Image: Novartis
- Cost: about $390,000 per gram.
- Where to find: Novartis laboratory, Basel, Switzerland.
Onasemnogene abeparvovec (commercial name Zolgensma) is the world's first drug for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. This is a hereditary disease Spinal muscular atrophy / NHS, which does not allow patients to move, swallow and hold their head. Although there is a type of SMA that appears in adulthood, atrophy most often develops in the first 18 months of life. One of the most common causes of child mortality among those associated with heredity. The SMA gene is carried by one person out of every 40–60 people on the planet.
For a long time it was believed that SMA was in principle incurable, but in 2019 a cure was finally found. True, it is extremely difficult to produce, so a 5.5 ml dose of Zolgensma costs $2.125 million. The drug was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive medicine in the world.
More expensive than gold: 18 most expensive substances in the world. The most valuable is worth 62.5 trillion dollars per gram.
A list of the 18 most expensive substances in the world, which may be very useful to you. Suddenly, a pack of graphene falls out of someone’s pocket, and you won’t even know what it is. And most importantly - how much it costs.
Let's start, strange as it may sound, with the cheapest substance on this list - gold.
Gold - $56 per gram.
Gold has long been considered the most expensive thing on Earth. But its main value was that it could serve as a universal currency, liquid almost throughout the world.
In addition to its traditional use in the jewelry industry, gold can be used as an electrical conductor and to prevent corrosion. Gold is a very heavy metal: the density of pure gold is 19,621 kg/m? (a ball of pure gold with a diameter of 46 mm has a mass of 1 kg).
Among metals it ranks sixth in density: after osmium, iridium, rhenium, platinum and plutonium. The high density of gold makes it easier to mine. The simplest technological processes, such as washing at sluices, can provide a very high degree of gold recovery from the washed rock.
Rhodium - about $58 per gram.
Rhodium is used primarily in catalytic converters to reduce vehicle carbon emissions. This metal does not play any biological role.
Rhodium compounds are quite rare in everyday life and their effects on the human body have not been fully studied. Despite this, they are highly toxic and carcinogenic substances. Rhodium salts can strongly stain human skin.
Platinum is about $60 per gram.
Platinum and its alloys are widely used in jewelry production. Every year the global jewelry industry consumes about 50 tons of platinum. Currently, about 10 million platinum products with a total weight of about 25 tons are sold annually in China.
Russian demand for jewelry platinum is 0.1% of the world level. Platinum, gold and silver are the main metals that perform a monetary function. However, platinum began to be used for making coins several thousand years later than gold and silver.
The world's first platinum coins were issued and circulated in the Russian Empire from 1828 to 1845. The largest platinum nugget currently existing is the “Ural Giant” weighing 7 kg 860.5 g. It was discovered in 1904 at the Isovsky mine. Nowadays it is kept in the Diamond Fund of the Moscow Kremlin.
Methamphetamine - $100 per gram.
Methamphetamine hydrochloride was produced in the USSR until the 1970s in the form of 3 mg tablets called Pervitin.
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant with extremely high additive potential, and therefore has become widely used as a drug.
There are known cases of smoking crystals of methamphetamine hydrochloride (“ice”, “ice”, “glass”), which for this purpose are sometimes specially prepared in the form of large crystals (rather than fine powder). This is the most additive application method.
When properly individualized, methamphetamine reduces feelings of fatigue, induces energy, increases mental and physical performance, reduces the need for sleep (allowing for round-the-clock work, which low-wage workers in Asia often do) and suppresses appetite.
Rhino horn - $110 per gram.
The horn is prized in Vietnam for its supposed ability to cure cancer. Its medicinal uses also include the treatment of fevers and other illnesses.
If a rhinoceros's horn is cut off or damaged, the animal will most likely not survive, but in young animals it can grow back. No one knows what its real function is, although females whose horns have been removed for some reason completely stop looking after their offspring.
Rhinos are endangered, primarily due to the huge demand for their horns. African rhinoceros horn is also highly prized in the Middle East, especially Yemen, both for medicinal reasons and for making the handles of traditional daggers. Since 1970, 67,050 kg of rhinoceros horn have been imported into Yemen. With an average weight of 3kg per horn, this means that 22,350 rhinos were killed.
Heroin – $131 per gram.
High-quality heroin can cost up to $130 per gram. This opiate is injected intravenously, snorted and smoked to alter consciousness.
According to data presented in a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), at the end of 2009, Russia ranked first in the world in the amount of heroin consumed. On average, about 80 tons of the drug are consumed in the country per year, which is 20% of the amount of heroin consumed in the world. Physicochemical properties: Pure substance - white crystalline powder. The unrefined product is a bitterish, grayish-brown powder in the form of small crystals with an unpleasant odor.
Cocaine – $215 per gram.
Cocaine is a methyl ester of benzoylecgonine, a tropane alkaloid, which has a local anesthetic and narcotic effect.
Along with other alkaloids, it is found in plants of the genus Erythroxylum, in particular: Cocaine bush (Erythroxylum coca), Erythroxylum laetevirens, etc. Cocaine is the second, after opiates, “problem drug”, a narcotic substance, the abuse of which represents a significant socio-economic problem .
Currently, cocaine is the most common drug of choice.
The popularity of this narcotic substance is due to its stimulating effect, improving mood and increasing performance. Cocaine itself does not have a distinct taste or smell; its organoleptic properties are provided by the impurities present in the mixture.
Worldwide cocaine consumption is estimated by experts at approximately 750 tons per year, with approximately a third of this volume occurring in the United States, which is the largest consumer of this drug.
LSD – $3,000 gram.
In crystalline form it costs about $3,000 per gram. A psychoactive substance in Russia is legally classified as a drug.
Like most similar surfactants, LSD does not cause physical dependence. LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light and chlorine (if in solution), but can be stored in darkness, low humidity and low temperature for many years.
In its pure form, LSD is colorless, odorless and slightly bitter in taste. It is usually consumed orally, for example, using a small piece of paper (“stamp”) soaked in a solution of the substance, or a piece of sugar, or in the form of gelatin.
In liquid form, LSD can be taken in the form of drops (hence the English expression “drop the acid”) or administered by intramuscular or intravenous injection.
Plutonium – $4,000.
Plutonium is a heavy basic chemical element that owes its origin to the “Big Bang” of the Universe.
A heavy, brittle radioactive metal of a silvery-white color. In the periodic table it is located in the actinide family. Widely used in the production of nuclear weapons, nuclear fuel for civil and research nuclear reactors, and as a source of energy for spacecraft.
Plutonium was very often used in nuclear bombs. A historical fact is the dropping of a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki in 1945 by the United States. The bomb dropped on this city contained 6.2 kg of plutonium. The power of the explosion was 21 kilotons.
Painite – $9,000.
Painite is a representative of rare minerals. For many years, only three of its crystals existed.
Until 2005, about 25 crystals had been found, most of the rocks were discovered in Burma. Initially, many of the known painite crystals were in private collections, and the remainder were divided between the British Museum of Natural History, the Hemological Institute of America, the California Institute of Technology and the Gem Research Laboratory in Lucerne (Switzerland). Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the rarest mineral in the world.
Taffeite – $20,000.
This mineral exists in several colors - from gray-violet to lilac; colorless specimens have even been found. It is a million times less often found than diamonds. That's why little has been heard about him.
Tritium – $30,000.
Industrial tritium is obtained by irradiating lithium-6 with neutrons in nuclear reactors according to the following reaction: It is used in military and civilian devices (illuminated compasses, lenses for reading maps in the dark), sighting devices, watches, key fobs, emergency inscriptions such as “exit”.
Diamonds – $55,000 per gram.
Diamonds are the third most expensive substance in the world. Diamonds require specific conditions to form, so on earth they can be found in the lithosphere and on meteorites that fall to the ground. Despite the abundance of diamonds, people continue to value it as a rare and expensive mineral.
California 252 – 60 thousand dollars per gram.
It was obtained artificially in 1950 by Seaborg's group at the University of California at Berkeley. The first solid compounds of californium - 249Cf2O3 and 249CfOCl - were obtained in 1958. The isotope 252Cf found the greatest use. It is used as a powerful source of neutrons in neutron activation analysis and in radiation therapy of tumors. In addition, the 252Cf isotope is used in experiments to study spontaneous nuclear fission.
Americium - $140,000 per gram.
Another transplutonium metal, with a very long half-life, which can reach up to 8,000 years.
Don't be afraid, americium-241 is most often used in production. It takes 450 years to decay, although we understand that this does not make it any easier for you. But this metal is extremely useful - equipment with americium-241 is also used to remove electrostatic charges from plastics, synthetic films and paper. It is also found inside some smoke detectors (~0.26 micrograms per detector).
Regolith (lunar soil) - $442,500 (for 0.6 g).
Regolith is what covers the surface of not only the Moon, but also all atmosphereless planets.
Let's say, the same Mars. But the Moon is the closest planet to us, to which, theoretically, we can fly, and we can send lunar rovers there every week. What does regolith consist of? Nothing remarkable: Ilmenite, Olivine, Anorthite, Pyroxene - all this can be found on Earth.
However, in 1993, at Sotheby's auction, three “moon pebbles” with a total weight of 0.6 grams, brought to our planet by a Soviet research shuttle, were sold for $442,500. Why so expensive? So from the moon!
Graphene - $100 million (per sq. cm).
The invention, authored by Konstantin Novoselov, is difficult to measure in grams because it weighs practically nothing.
So you have to measure in centimeters. What it is? A two-dimensional allotropic modification of carbon, millions of times thinner than the thinnest human hair, making it difficult to look at.
Why the hell is it needed? They say that a ballistic transistor can be assembled based on graphene, used in supercapacitors to obtain rechargeable current sources and in the production of LEDs. Novoselov recently told and showed in pictures how you can get graphene at home, so if you want to get rich quickly, look for instructions on the Internet.
Antimatter – $62.5 trillion per gram.
The most expensive substance, worth $62.5 trillion, is antimatter or antimatter. In fact, its price is incalculable. When it encounters ordinary matter, it explodes, turning into light, so it is practically impossible to preserve it in anything.
However, during the experiment, scientists created antiprotons at the CERN accelerator and locked them in a vacuum chamber. At the same time, positrons were created using radioactive material and placed in another chamber. By combining them, antihydrogen was created.
1 ton of antimatter per year would cover the energy needs of the entire planet. One gram of antihydrogen produced using today's methods costs $62.5 trillion.
Based on materials from Exciter, Wikipedia and Interesting Facts.
Regolith
Image: Wknight94/Wikimedia Commons
- Cost: $4.28 million What's a moon rock worth, anyway? / Quartz per gram.
- Where to find: The Moon, as well as any planets with a solid surface and asteroids.
Regolith is simply soil, loose rocks that cover the surface of celestial bodies. The closest source of regolith to us is the Moon.
Regolith consists of various minerals and igneous rocks, as well as glass, which is formed in places where meteorites fall when sand is exposed to high temperatures. According to Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, if you place regolith in the earth's atmosphere, it will smell like I. I. Cherkasov, V. V. Shvarev. The soil of the Moon is burnt and shot with percussion caps.
In total, Lunar Samples / LPI stores about 324 g of regolith on Earth, collected by Soviet automatic Lunar stations, 382 kg from six Apollos and 1,731 grams brought by Chinese stations. Some of the Apollo astronauts' instruments, stained with lunar dust, were auctioned off. In addition, at the Sotheby's auction in 1993, FBI Revisits Earthly Theft of Moon Rock / The New York Times sold 0.6 grams of regolith delivered by the Luna-24 station for $442,500. Expensive, but not particularly useful acquisition.
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The activities of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences academician Viktor Petrik and his co-author, the “brilliant scientist” (as Petrik himself characterizes him) Boris Gryzlov, who is also the speaker of the State Duma from United Russia, became widely known when Gryzlov asked for 15 trillion. budget rubles for the implementation of the “Clean Water” program, which provided for the installation of Petrik system filters throughout Russia for budget money, equipped with advertising from “United Russia”. The list of Victor Petrik's inventions is very impressive: from a perpetual motion machine (Petrik claims to have invented batteries that receive energy from the environment) to the philosopher's stone (also known as thermally expanded graphite, which allows one to purify water from radioactive substances); he also invented rays that prolong human life to 140 years. Agree, not bad at all for a man sentenced in 1984 to 11 years in prison under 13 articles of the Criminal Code, including fraud, extortion and attempted robbery.
It cannot be said that Petrik’s inventions did not work at all: let’s take, for example, the fairings for rockets made of artificial spinel demonstrated by Petrik. The fairings were real: they were made back in Soviet times by the State Optical Institute, and after perestroika, many defective copies ended up in the hands of the employees who sold them.
Attempts to doubt the existence of the philosopher's stone and perpetual motion caused severe rebuff from two Russian Leonardo da Vinci. Boris Gryzlov publicly accused his opponents of “obscurantism,” and RAS academician Evgeny Alexandrov was even threatened with murder. The voice on the answering machine, which, according to Aleksandrov, belonged to Petrik, promised him “20 ways of physical destruction without a trace” and said: “You think that you are very smart, but now you have climbed to a very high level.” Despite the scandal surrounding Petrik’s name and the devastating conclusions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Clean Water program was included in the list of federal target programs for 2011, although the volume of its funding is still unclear.
To understand the reasons for the sympathy of the highest officials of the state for Viktor Petrik, we should talk about the story of osmium-187; this scam would have done honor to Ostap Bender and could well have served as the plot of the next novel by Ilf and Petrov, if they had described St. Petersburg in the 90s.
At the beginning, we should recall the atmosphere of those years: the huge profits received by special exporters from the actual export of copper or aluminum abroad at domestic prices, and the completely mythical stories circulating among half-educated bandits and officials about precious substances invented by the advanced Russian defense industry - like “red mercury” .
Peter did not stay away from this fever. The first “topic” was alphafetoprotein, a substance formed during embryo development. The story of a brilliant inventor in slippers on bare feet, who isolated this same alpha-fetoprotein from abortive tissue, spread across gangster St. Petersburg like the speed of the wind. The inventor was stolen by all and sundry - either bandits or cops, but no sense came of it. Abroad, an uncertified drug, extracted God knows under what conditions (what if it was boiled in the toilet and spat into the raw material?), was not needed by anyone.
Then there were bee and snake venoms - St. Petersburg bandits even chartered planes for these poisons.
And against this background, on October 4, 1993, a high-ranking official of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office, Lev Savenkov, was detained at the border while attempting to smuggle ampoules with 6 grams of osmium-187 from Russia.
The scandal arose was terrible. All media reported about the smuggling of rare metal, one gram of which cost 200 thousand dollars. Officials of the St. Petersburg mayor's office stood up as a wall to protect their colleagues, and even Vladimir Putin, who then headed the Foreign Trade Committee, gave an interview to the newspaper "Evening Petersburg" on March 17, 1994, from which it followed that the city of St. Petersburg planned to obtain osmium from budget money -187.
“The inventions created in the course of this work,” Putin said, “are patented, i.e. protected by law. I met with the inventor (for obvious reasons I do not mention his name) and discussed with him all the difficulties that had arisen. The scientist is ready to implement his discoveries within the framework of the joint-stock company that Savenkov originally proposed to create.”
So, Putin then met with criminal Viktor Petrik. Petrik showed him “cosmically pure” osmium-187 for 200 thousand dollars. per gram and asked for budget money for its production. Question: how was Petrik able to obtain “cosmically pure” osmium-187 “in the kitchen”?
To answer this question, we must recall the rhenium-osmium method for determining the age of a substance. Rhenium has two stable isotopes: 185 and 187. Rhenium-185 is completely stable, and the half-life of rhenium-187 is 10 billion years; the decay of rhenium-187 produces just osmium-187, which is very convenient for dating. You take a piece of ore, see how much rhenium-187 is in it, and how much osmium-187 is in it, and you get a date.
In Kazakhstan there is the Dzhezkazgan copper plant, the ore of which contains a lot of rhenium. Accordingly, in the dumps of the plant, of all osmium isotopes, only the isotope osmium-187 is contained, which makes it possible to obtain osmium-187 of “cosmic purity” from these dumps by chemical means.
We must pay tribute to Viktor Petrik. He realized - or was told to him - that from the dumps of the Dzhezkazgan copper plant, it is possible to chemically obtain not just osmium, but osmium-187, because there is no other osmium there, because it is a half-life product of rhenium.
The problem is that osmium-187 is not needed for anything. Not needed at all. There are no ways to use it: just like there are no ways to use many other expensive substances. This is the elusive Joe that no one can catch because no one is looking for him.
At the same time, at the prices of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in 1993, osmium-187 was indeed very expensive: 200 thousand dollars per gram or 200 dollars per microgram. This price was explained by the cost of production.
The Oak Ridge Laboratory obtained all rare isotopes using the method of electromagnetic separation, based on the different effects of a magnetic field on equally charged particles of different masses. And the cost of the isotope in this case is directly proportional to the amount of money and effort spent on its isolation. Any isotope, of which there is little in the original chemically pure substance (and osmium-187 is very rare and makes up 1.6% of osmium in nature), is very expensive.
So, the question is: you have a rare isotope, it has a nominal price, but at this price no one will ever buy it from you, because no one needs it. How to convince the public of its value?
And here we return to the story of the detention of Lev Savenkov. After it, all journalists rushed to write about osmium-187. All government agencies - the FSB, the prosecutor's office, the cops - rushed to find out why he was needed. Even future President Putin told how important osmium production was for St. Petersburg.
This created enormous publicity for osmium-187. Everyone was discussing whether it was right or wrong to export osmium. And no one discussed - why is it needed?
Meanwhile, shortly before Savenkov was detained at the border, at the Radium Institute. Khlopina in St. Petersburg were approached from abroad with an offer to sell them osmium-187 in the amount of 100 grams. Let me remind you that this happened in the early 90s, the institute had no funding, the scientists sat with their teeth on the shelf, and they perceived the strange order as manna from heaven. The Radium Institute turned to the State Reserve, received 60 kilograms of pure osmium from there and isolated 100 grams of osmium-187 from it.
I must admit: the scientists at the Radium Institute did not realize that osmium could be obtained chemically from the dumps of the Dzhezkazgan copper plant. Of course, they did not resort to electromagnetic separation, since the volume of the order was too large: they built a centrifuge and produced 100 grams of osmium-187.
And then foreign customers disappeared. The institute was left with 100 grams of osmium, which formally cost 200 thousand dollars. per gram, but no one needed it. And this whole story coincided with the advertising campaign of osmium-187, which occurred thanks to the detention of Savenkov; Every St. Petersburg banker and bandit found out that osmium-187 costs 200 thousand dollars. gram and that this is a terribly important thing.
So what would you think? Russian customers came to the institute, sitting on a shelf with its teeth and one hundred grams of pure osmium-187. They said they were ready to buy osmium. Moreover, they were ready to buy it for $50 million.
What do you think is the tattoo? Here’s the thing: the young guys honestly explained: “Osmium on the world market costs 200 thousand dollars per gram. Here you have 100 grams. We will pledge this osmium as collateral for a loan from a commercial bank for $200 million, and after that we will pay you 50.”
Victor Petrik really knows physics very well - to the extent that medieval alchemists knew him. Namely: if you want to receive budget money from the emperor for the production of gold, then you must stir the crucible with hollow wooden sticks in which the gold is hidden: the sticks will burn and the gold will fall out into the crucible. And even better than physicists, Viktor Petrik knows human psychology.
Because the above story is brilliant. This is a completely ruthless scam, in which the arrest of Lev Savenkov was necessary only to create an advertisement for the useless osmium-187, and the nominally high price of osmium in the prices of the Oak Ridge laboratory (later the Dzhezkazgan copper plant tried to sell off its osmium for 10 dollars per gram ) was used to involve the most senior officials of the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the scam.
The Clean Water program is a repeat of the osmium-187 story. The only significant difference is that osmium-187, although useless, is also harmless. The same cannot be said about Petrik filters, supplied to schools for budget money.
In the Novgorod region, an epidemic of meningitis broke out in schools that used Petrik filters. In July 2010, the consumer protection society sued Petrik, claiming that his filters did not meet the declared parameters and often did not purify the water, but polluted it. The Academy of Sciences indicates that the penetration of nano-sized graphite particles into the body (which occurs when using Petrik filters) can cause cancer.
If this is so, then the installation of Petrik filters in all schools and social institutions at public expense could turn into an unprecedented disaster for Russia, comparable only to the results that the use of lead water pipes brought to Rome. However, this is unlikely to stop the brilliant scientist Gryzlov, who is fighting against obscurantism, and his unidentified like-minded person, who threatens Academician Alexandrov with death.
California-252
Image: US Department of Energy
- Cost: up to $27 million per gram What Is the Most Expensive Element? /ThoughtCo.
- Where to find: RIAR in Dimitrovgrad, Russia; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA.
Californium-252 is a radioactive chemical element. Production, Distribution, and Applications of Californium-252 Neutron Sources / Oak Ridge National Lab. , extremely unstable and expensive to produce. It is a silvery-white metal.
There are more rare and valuable elements, but this one stands out because at least Californium/Metalary has a practical use, unlike, for example, France. Californium is used in a nuclear reactor as a source of neutrons. It can also be used to treat certain types of brain and cervical cancer. In addition, californium is present in oil and coal prospecting devices and some metal detectors.
Where is metal used?
Californian is poisonous due to its high radioactivity. This property ensures the demand for metal. The isotope californium-252 has become widespread. Oncologists use it. Microscopic amounts of californium allow a targeted effect on cancer cells, killing even aggressive tumors.
Cf-252 emits 170 million neutrons per minute. Californian is used as the basis for nuclear weapons. Element-based sensors allow you to search for:
- gold and silver ore;
- water and oil-bearing layers;
- defects in structures without disassembling them.
The element is popular in various industries. But customers have to wait their turn. Reactors in Russia and the USA are capable of producing up to 80-100 micrograms of californium per year. Reserves of the material on earth do not exceed 10 g, which explains the price exceeding $6.5 million per gram. Scientists suggest that californium exists beyond the Earth. In particular, the Moon is considered as the source of the element.
The inaccessibility of the metal complicates its research. In 2018, scientists from the University of Florida managed to “extract” 5 mg of californium from the US Department of Energy. Experiments have shown that this is a transitional element. That is, it helps to connect different representatives of the periodic table.
Astatine
Image: Greg Robson/Wikimedia Commons
- Cost: from $1 billion Directory of Cyclotrons used for Radionuclide Production in Member States per gram.
- Where to find: Michael R. Zalutsky, Marek Pruszynski exist around the world. Astatine‑211: Production and Availability 36 cyclotrons capable of producing astatine. Additionally, about 1 gram of astatine (approximately) is present in the earth's crust.
Astatine 1. Measurement of the first ionization potential of astatine by laser ionization spectroscopy / Nature Communications 2. Astatine / Popular library of chemical elements - the rarest element in the periodic table in the world. It is easier to create it artificially than to find it in nature. But even in the laboratory, no more than a few nanograms of astatine can be synthesized.
Strictly speaking, it is not possible to obtain astatine in sufficient volume to simply see it. Most likely, it would look like a blue-black metal that looks like iodine and silver at the same time. But it is not recommended to smear wounds with it because of the powerful alpha radiation that astatine produces.
In theory, astatine could help in the treatment of cancer. In practice, it is too difficult and expensive to produce. After all, it is not only extremely radioactive, but also unstable.
How to obtain californium
The element (Cf) was discovered in 1950 by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Californium was first synthesized by:
- Stanley Thompson;
- Glenn Seaborg;
- Albert Ghiorso;
- Kenneth Street.
The metal became the 6th member of the actinides after uranium. Californian was obtained by bombarding it with alpha particles from the isotope curium-242. Each nuclear reaction resulted in a free neutron and Cf-245, which existed for about 45 minutes. Scientists have synthesized about 700,000 californium atoms. They were enough to obtain a cube with a side of 27 nm and confirm the discovery.
Today there are only 2 installations for the production of Californian. In addition to the American Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the element is synthesized in Russia (Ulyanovsk region, Dmitrovgrad). Irradiation of curium isotopes lasts 1-1.5 years.
