Cobalt

Cobalt, though widely dispersed, makes up only 0.001 percent of Earth’s crust. It is found in small
quantities in terrestrial and meteoritic native nickel-iron, in the Sun and stellar atmospheres, and in
combination with other elements in natural waters, in ferromanganese crusts deep in the oceans,
in soils, in plants and animals, and in minerals such as cobaltite, linnaeite, skutterudite, smaltite,
heterogenite, and erythrite. In animals, cobalt is a trace element essential in the nutrition of
ruminants

Cobalt ore is not usually mined for the cobalt content. Rather, it is often recovered as a by-product
from the mining of ores of iron, nickel, copper, silver, manganese, zinc, and arsenic, which contain
traces of cobalt. Complex processing is required to concentrate and extract cobalt from these ores.

Cobalt is one of the three metals that are ferromagnetic at room temperature. It dissolves slowly in
dilute mineral acids, does not combine directly with either hydrogen or nitrogen, but will combine,
on heating, with carbon, phosphorus, or sulfur. Cobalt is also attacked by oxygen and by water
vapour at elevated temperatures, with the result that cobaltous oxide, CoO (with the metal in the
+2 state), is produced.

Natural cobalt is all stable isotope cobalt-59, from which the longest-lived artificial radioactive
isotope cobalt-60 (5.3-year half-life) is produced by neutron irradiation in a nuclear reactor.
Gamma radiation from cobalt-60 has been used in place of X-rays or alpha rays from radium in the
inspection of industrial materials to reveal internal structure, flaws, or foreign objects. It has also
been used in cancer therapy, in sterilization studies, and in biology and industry as a radioactive
tracer.

Most of the cobalt produced is used for special alloys. A relatively large percentage of the world’s
production goes into magnetic alloys such as the Alnicos for permanent magnets. Sizable
quantities are utilized for alloys that retain their properties at high temperatures and superalloys
that are used near their melting points (where steels would become too soft). Cobalt is also
employed for hard-facing alloys, tool steels, low-expansion alloys (for glass-to-metal seals), and
constant-modulus (elastic) alloys (for precision hairsprings). Cobalt is the most satisfactory matrix
for cemented carbides.

Finely divided cobalt ignites spontaneously. Larger pieces are relatively inert in air, but above 300
°C (570 °F) extensive oxidation occurs.