Barium is a member of the alkaline-earth metals. It has technical applications in glass, electronics and medicine. It is also used in paints and colorants. Barium is available asmetal and compounds with purities from 99% to 99.999% (ACS grade to ultra-high purity); metals in the form of foil, sputtering target, and rod, and compounds assubmicron and nanopowder. Electronic coatings based on barium titanate are essential to cell phones and other microelectroinics. It has long been used in medical diagnostic techniques because it makes a good x-ray contrast medium. Barium is a dopant in various fluorescent lamp coating formulas.
Barium facts, including appearance, CAS #, and molecular formula and safety data, research and properties are available for many specific states, forms and shapes on the product pages listed to the left. Elemental or metallic forms include pellets, rod, wire and granules for evaporation source material purposes.Nanoparticles and nanopowdersprovide ultra high surface area which nanotechnology research and recent experiments demonstrate function to create new and unique properties and benefits.
Oxides are available in forms including powders and dense pellets for such uses as optical coating and thin film applications.Oxides tend to be insoluble. Fluorides are another insoluble form for uses in which oxygen is undesirable such as metallurgy, chemical and physical vapor deposition and in some optical coatings. Barium is available in soluble forms including chlorides, nitrates and acetates. These compounds are also manufactured as solutions at specified stoichiometries.
Barium is a Block S, Group 2, Period 6 element. The number of electrons in each of Barium‘s shells is 2, 8, 18, 18, 8, 2 and its electronic configuration is [Xe] 6s2. In its elemental form barium‘s CAS number is 7440-39-3. The barium atom has a radius of 217.4.pm and it‘s Van der Waals radius is 200.pm.
All elemental metals, compounds and solutions may be synthesized in ultra high purity (e.g. 99.999%) for laboratory standards, advanced electronic, thin fillm deposition using sputtering targets andevaporation materials, metallurgy and optical materials and other high technology applications. Information is provided for stable (non-radioactive) isotopes. Organo-Metallic Barium compounds are soluble in organic or non-aqueous solvents. See Analytical Services for information on available certified chemical and physical analysis techniques including MS-ICP, X-Ray Diffraction, PSD and Surface Area (BET) analysis.
The main commercial source for barium is barite. Barium was first discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1808.
Abundance. The following table shows the abundance of barium and each of its naturally occurringisotopes on Earth along with the atomic mass for each isotope.
Isotope | Atomic Mass | % Abundance on Earth |
Ba-130 | 129.906310 | 0.106 |
Ba-132 | 131.905056 | 0.101 |
Ba-134 | 133.904503 | 2.417 |
Ba-135 | 134.905683 | 6.592 |
Ba-136 | 135.904570 | 7.854 |
Ba-137 | 136.905821 | 11.23 |
Ba-138 | 137.905241 | 71.70 |
Typical Human Body | Universe | |
by Weight | 300 ppb | 10 ppb |
by Atom | 14 ppb | 0.09 ppb |
1st Ionization Energy | 502.86 kJ mol-1 |
2nd Ionization Energy | 965.24 kJ mol-1 |
3rd Ionization Energy | - kJ mol-1 |
Heat of Fusion | 7.66 kJ mol-1 |
Heat of Vaporization | 150.9 kJ mol-1 |
Heat of Atomization | 180.7 kJ mol-1 |