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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren boble Bomb here coming in at number twenty seven

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Speaker 1: on your periodic table. Is cobalt, an essential element in

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Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries and jet engines. In The U. S. Department

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Speaker 1: of Interior issued a list of thirty five critical minerals

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Speaker 1: that the U. S economy can't live without, including cobalt.

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Speaker 1: Cobalt is even considered a national security risk because most

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Speaker 1: of it is mined in a politically unstable region of

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Speaker 1: Africa and refined in China. Let's learn more about this

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Speaker 1: versatile metal, first prized for its ability to create vivid

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Speaker 1: blue pottery, and now the key to the future of

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Speaker 1: electric cars. We'll start off with a bit of folklore.

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Speaker 1: Cobalt got its name from Gnomes. Centuries ago, miners in

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Speaker 1: the Schnee Barrack Mountains of modern day Germany ran into

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Speaker 1: a problem. They carved into the mountain side in search

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Speaker 1: of metal rich ore, specifically silver and nickel, but when

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Speaker 1: they tried to smelt the ore into its valuable metal components,

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Speaker 1: some impurity kept spoiling the process. Being the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: the miners blamed their smelting issues on troublesome co Belts

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Speaker 1: or Copolds, a medieval German word for gnome or goblin.

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Speaker 1: According to legend, the Copolds lived in the Schneeberg mines

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Speaker 1: and liked to prank humans by replacing the silver and

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Speaker 1: nickel in their ore with a foul mineral that released

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Speaker 1: poisonous fumes during the smelting process. They were also blamed

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Speaker 1: for Caven's. As with all good ancient legends, the gnome

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Speaker 1: story had a grain of truth to it. The silver

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Speaker 1: and nickel smelting process was complicated by high levels of

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Speaker 1: naturally occurring cobalt in the Schneberg rock, and a related

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Speaker 1: mineral called cobalite contains arsenic and sulfur, which could be

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Speaker 1: deadly if released in an air tight mind shaft. Cobalt

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Speaker 1: as its own element was first isolated and named in

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Speaker 1: seventeen thirty five by the Swedish chemist Giore Brandt, an

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Speaker 1: early critic of alchemy and probably not a fan of

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Speaker 1: gnomes either. Although cobalt didn't get its name until the

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century, Cobalt based pigments and dyes have been prized

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Speaker 1: for their rich blue hue for millennia. The Cobalt Institute

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Speaker 1: says that pottery and glass containing cobalt based glazes has

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Speaker 1: been recovered from Egyptian tombs dating back at least two thousand,

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Speaker 1: six hundred years, and the famous blue Chinese porcelain from

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Speaker 1: the Tang and Ming dynasties were also glazed with cobalt

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Speaker 1: based minerals. Pure cobalt is a shiny gray color, but

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Speaker 1: it can be transformed into a bright blue powder by

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Speaker 1: taking certain cobalt oxides that is, compounds of cobalt plus

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Speaker 1: oxygen and treating them with a process called calcination, in

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Speaker 1: which they're exposed to temperatures in excess of two thousand

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Speaker 1: and twelve degrees fahrenheit, which is one thousand, one hundred

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Speaker 1: degrees celsius. The striking color known as cobalt blue, is

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Speaker 1: made by heating cobalt oxide with aluminum silicates at two thousand,

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Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety two degrees fahrenheit that's one thousand,

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Speaker 1: two hundred degrees celsius. A host of other hues mazzarine blue,

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Speaker 1: willow blue, blue black, can be made by combining cobalt

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Speaker 1: oxides with other minerals. Small amounts of blue cobalt hues

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Speaker 1: are also used as a d colorizer to cancel out

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Speaker 1: yellowish hints in glass from iron contamination. Cobalt was almost

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Speaker 1: exclusively used as an ingredient in pigments and paints up

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Speaker 1: until the twentieth century. In nineteen sixteen, more than seventy

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Speaker 1: of all cobalt mined and refined in the world, which

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Speaker 1: was only four forty tons by the way, was used

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Speaker 1: as oxides for colorings. Today, half the world's cobalt is

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Speaker 1: used for rechargeable batteries. The rechargeable lithium ion batteries in

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Speaker 1: your smartphone, tablet, and electric vehicle run at least in

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Speaker 1: part on cobalt. Cobalt is one of the key ingredients,

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Speaker 1: along with other metals like lithium, nickel, and manganese, inside

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Speaker 1: these fast charging, long lasting batteries that power our digital lives.

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Speaker 1: About fifty of the cobalt produced worldwide is used for

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Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries. Cobalt is found in the cathode, that is,

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Speaker 1: the positively charged trode of lithium ion batteries. When a

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Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries charged, lithium ions flow from the cathode

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Speaker 1: to the negatively charged anode, where they're stored. When the

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Speaker 1: batteries discharged, the ions flow back to the cathode and

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Speaker 1: electrons are released to power the phone or electric motor.

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Speaker 1: Cobalt has to innate properties that make it ideal for

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Speaker 1: battery applications, thermal stability and high energy density. Cathodes made

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Speaker 1: with cobalt won't overheat easily or catch fire, which is

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Speaker 1: a major safety issue, and they'll also be able to

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Speaker 1: store and transform more energy. Cobalt is not only found

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Speaker 1: in the cathodes of lithium ion batteries, but also in

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Speaker 1: other popular rechargeable batteries like nickel cadmium and nickel metal

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Speaker 1: hydride batteries. Since cobalt currently makes up between ten and

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Speaker 1: thirty three percent of rechargeable cathodes, the automobile industry is

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Speaker 1: going to need a lot more cobalt to power the

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Speaker 1: future of electric vehicles. One analysis predicts the cobalt demand

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Speaker 1: from passenger vehicles alone quadruple from more than twenty seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: five hundred tons in to over one and ten thousand

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Speaker 1: tons by and Furthermore, when aerospace engineers need a material

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Speaker 1: that can withstand the intense heat inside a jet or

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Speaker 1: rocket engine, they turn to super alloys made with cobalt.

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Speaker 1: Super alloys are high performance metals that earn their flashy

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Speaker 1: name from extremely high resistance to wear and heat. Nickel

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Speaker 1: based super alloys outperform cobalt alloys for stress resistance for

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Speaker 1: temperatures reaching up to one thousand, seven hundred and six

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Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit that's thy degrees celsius. Beyond that extreme temperature, though,

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Speaker 1: cobalt based super alloys really show their stuff. Cobalt has

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Speaker 1: a higher melting point than nickel, and cobalt super alloys

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Speaker 1: are more resistant to heat corrosion. That's why you'll find

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Speaker 1: cobalt super alloys in the stationary fins of gas turbine engines,

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Speaker 1: which take the brunt of the intense heat generated by

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Speaker 1: jet engines without wearing down and failing. But one of

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Speaker 1: the main reasons cobalt landed on the U S Department

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Speaker 1: of Interiors list of Critical Minerals for National Security is

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Speaker 1: that half of the world's cobalt is mined in the

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Speaker 1: Democratic Republic of Congo, or the d r C. As

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Speaker 1: a report from the U S Geological Survey explains, the

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Speaker 1: d r C has a poor history of government corruption,

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Speaker 1: human rights violations, and environmental damage. Related to cobalt mining,

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Speaker 1: and it's not only human rights groups like Amnesty International

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Speaker 1: that are concerned with unsafe and unethical labor practices related

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Speaker 1: to unregulated cobalt mining in the d r C. The

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Speaker 1: political and environmental instability of the d r C means

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Speaker 1: that a huge chunk of the cobalt supply chain is

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Speaker 1: vulnerable to disruption. If the high tech economy relies on

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Speaker 1: a steady supply of cobalt, largely to be used in

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Speaker 1: rechargeable batteries, then troubles in the d r C could

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Speaker 1: slow economic growth worldwide. The U S Geological Survey report

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Speaker 1: also notes that China is the main refiner of cobalt

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Speaker 1: and one of the biggest financial backers of large cobalt

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Speaker 1: mining operations in the d r C. As it stands,

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Speaker 1: the u US tech sector is hugely dependent on an

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Speaker 1: unstable source in DRC and a contentious trade partner in

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Speaker 1: China for its cobalt supply, which accounts for the fact

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Speaker 1: that the US is getting into cobalt mining. According to

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Speaker 1: figures from the United States consumed ten percent of the

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Speaker 1: world's cobalt while producing less than one percent of the

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Speaker 1: global cobalt supply. Cobalt isn't everywhere, but it also isn't

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Speaker 1: a particularly rare mineral. It ranks thirty second in abundance

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Speaker 1: in the Earth's crust. Only two mines in Canada and

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Speaker 1: Morocco can extract pure cobalt ore, while the majority is

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Speaker 1: extracted as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. One

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Speaker 1: of the world's richest cobalt deposits is in the Central

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Speaker 1: African copper Belt in the DRC. The United States is

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Speaker 1: not blessed with a lot of high grade cobalt deposits,

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Speaker 1: which makes it trickier to mine profitably. The mining industry

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Speaker 1: also has complained of a slow permitting process to allow

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Speaker 1: for mineral exploration, both on shore and offshore. The Trump

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Speaker 1: administration has directed the Department of Interior to speed up

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Speaker 1: the permitting process in an effort to decrease America's reliance

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Speaker 1: on foreign sources of critical minerals like cobalt. Despite permitting

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Speaker 1: and geological obstacles, there has been some progress in US

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Speaker 1: cobalt mining. In the Eagle Mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

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Speaker 1: began mining nickel and copper, with cobalt and other minerals

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Speaker 1: as a byproduct. And America's first mind dedicated to cobalt

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Speaker 1: is getting ready to go into production in in Idaho.

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Speaker 1: Oh And one more fact. Cobalt is an essential micronutrient

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Speaker 1: in animal and human diets. Ruminants like cows transformed cobalt

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Speaker 1: into cobal amen, also known as vitamin B twelve. The

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Speaker 1: food with the highest concentration of cobalt is chocolate. Today's

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Speaker 1: episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang.

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Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How

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Speaker 1: multi purpose topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works

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