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16. SulfurName: Sulfur
The spelling of sulphur is "sulfur" in the USA and now that IUPAC has decided it has jurisdiction over the British English language (as distinct from American English) as well as nomenclature, so we in the UK are expected to use the f word. Sulphur is found in meteorites, volcanoes, hot springs, and as galena, gypsum, Epsom salts, and barite. It is recovered commercially from "salt domes" along the Gulf Coast of the USA. Jupiter's moon Io owes its colours to various forms of sulphur. A dark area near the crater Aristarchus on the moon may be a sulphur deposit. Sulphur is a pale yellow, odourless, brittle solid, which is insoluble in water but soluble in carbon disulphide. Sulphur is essential to life. It is a minor constituent of fats, body fluids, and skeletal minerals. Sulfur (Sanskrit, sulvere; Latin sulpur) was known in ancient times, and is referred to in the Biblical story of Pentateuch (Genesis). English translations of this commonly refer to sulfur as "brimstone", giving rise to the name of 'Fire and brimstone' sermons, which are sermons where hell and eternal damnation for sinners is stressed. It is from this part of the bible that hell is thought to smell of sulfur. The word itself is almost certainly from the Arabic "sufra" meaning yellow, from the bright color of the naturally-occurring form. If there is indeed a Sanskrit word 'sulvere', this can only be a borrowing. Homer mentioned "pest-averting sulfur" in the 9th century BC and in 424 BC, the tribe of Bootier destroyed the walls of a city by burning a mixture of coal, sulfur, and tar under them. Sometime in the 12th century, the Chinese invented gun powder which is a mixture of potassium nitrate (KNO3), carbon, and sulfur. Early alchemists gave sulfur its own alchemical symbol which was a triangle at the top of a cross. Through experimentation, alchemists knew that the element mercury can be combined with sulfur. In the late 1770s, Antoine Lavoisier helped convince the scientific community that sulfur was an element and not a compound. In 1867 sulfur was discovered in underground deposits in Louisiana and Texas. The overlying layer of earth was quicksand, prohibiting ordinary mining operations. Therefore the Frasch process was utilized. Carbon disulphide, hydrogen sulphide, and sulphur dioxide should be handled extremely carefully. Hydrogen sulphide in very small concentrations can be metabolized, but in higher concentrations it can cause death quickly by respiratory paralysis. It is insidious in that it quickly deadens the sense of smell. Sulphur dioxide is a dangerous component in atmospheric air pollution and is one of the factors responsible for acid rain. Quick links
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