Replies

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    Marique > ☼Petar▲Truthseeker October 16, 2009 at 11:55pm

    very bad to be breathed in.
    
    Barium (pronounced /ˈbɛəriəm/, BAIR-ee-əm) is a chemical element. It has the symbol Ba, atomic number 56, and is the fifth element in Group 2. Barium is a soft silvery metallic alkaline earth metal. It is never found in nature in its pure form due to its reactivity with air. Its oxide is historically known as baryta but it reacts with water and carbon dioxide and is not found as a mineral. The most common naturally occurring minerals are the very insoluble barium sulfate, BaSO4 (barite), and barium carbonate, BaCO3 (witherite). Benitoite is a rare gem containing barium.
    
    Metallic barium has few industrial uses, but has been historically used to scavenge air in vacuum tubes. Barium compounds impart a green color to flames and have been used in fireworks. Barium sulfate is used for its heaviness, insolubility, and X-ray opacity. It is used as an insoluble heavy mud-like paste when drilling oil wells, and in purer form, as an X-ray radiocontrast agent for imaging the human gastrointestinal tract. Soluble barium compounds are poisonous due to release of the soluble barium ion, and have been used as rodenticides. New uses for barium continue to be found: it is an essential ingredient in "high temperature" YBCO superconductors.
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  Cedric October 17, 2009 at 12:18am

  great...like usual 10 minutes of bla bla and still no answers
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    Marique > Cedric October 17, 2009 at 12:22am

    Hey Cedric, it DOES get more interesting. Just watch the other four parts I posted and that is a lot more interesting. It was a very long interview so they posted it in 5 parts. Watch 2-5 and I think you will be more interested...I think they got separated when I posted all five of them but you should be able to find them. Hope this helps..there are some Ah ha moments I promise you.
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  einstein October 16, 2009 at 11:44pm

  We have nitrogen and carbon in our atmosphere and when barium is added to these two compounds/elements it forms cyanide!
  
  Barium carbonate is a rat poison and can also be used in making bricks. Unlike the sulfate, the carbonate dissolves in stomach acid, allowing it to be poisonous.
  
  The most important use of elemental barium is as a scavenger removing last traces of oxygen and other gases in television and other electronic tubes.
  
  A few other uses can be found at wiki.