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Boron: Metals
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Boron was first isolated (1808) by Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis-Jacques Thenard and independently by Sir Humphry Davy by heating boron oxide (B2O3) with potassium metal. The impure, amorphous product, a brownish black powder, was the only form of boron known for more than a century. Pure crystalline boron may be prepared with difficulty by reduction of its bromide or chloride (BBr3, BCl3) with hydrogen on an electrically heated tantalum filament.
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Boron is used to make certain types of alloys. An alloy is made by melting and mixing two or more metals. The mixture has properties different from those of the individual metals. The most important of these alloys commercially are used to make some of the strongest magnets known. The rare earth magnets, for example, are made from boron, iron, and neodymium. These magnets are used for microphones, magnetic switches, loudspeakers, headphones, particle accelerators, and many technical applications.
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Boron nitride binds well with metals, due to formation of interlayers of metal borides or nitrides. Materials with cubic boron nitride crystals are often used in the tool bits of cutting tools. Ceramic binders can be used as well.
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Boron is used as a melting point depressant in Nickel-Chromium braze alloys. Diffusion of the boron from the braze alloy into the parent metal at brazing temperature increases the melting temperature promoting solidification of the joint. Subsequent remelting occurs at a much higher temperature.
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Boron is quite different from other members of the family. One difference is that boron is not a metal. All other members of the family (aluminum, gallium, indium, and thallium) are metals.
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