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Minerals - Blog Posts
I'd like to know why the minerals are hazardous!
YES I got someone to bite!
Okay, so, the two specific minerals I have in my collection that are hazardous are hazardous for different reasons.
First off, chromite.
Reason it is potentially hazardous: On its own, chromite isn’t necessarily dangerous. It becomes dangerous when exposed to certain environmental conditions. Under certain conditions, the chromium present in chromite changes from Cr(III) (trivalent chromium) to Cr(VI) (hexavalent chromium). Hexavalent chromium is a known toxin and carcinogen.
Reason I still have it in my collection: You need very specific circumstances to transform the Cr(III) in chromite to Cr(VI). Generally, those circumstances occur when chromite ore is being processed to produce chromium. All my chromite does is chill in a jar all day. There’s very little likelihood that my chromite has oxidized to form hexavalent chromium.
(Not to mention, despite some vigorous Google searching, I couldn’t find anything about chromite being hazardous, just that mining and processing it is hazardous, neither of which I am doing.)
My second mineral in the “Danger Jar” is uraninite, aka pitchblende.
Reason it is potentially hazardous: It’s a uranium ore, which makes it weakly radioactive. Marie Curie (one of my role models) famously died as a result of exposure to radiation from pitchblende.
Reason I still have it in my collection: Marie Curie processed literal tons of pitchblende during her research. I have a small specimen the size of my thumb. Also, while it is radioactive, its form of radioactivity (alpha decay) makes the main concern internal exposure (breathing in particles, ingesting it), rather than external exposure (just being in close proximity to it). Basically, it doesn’t give off much radiation anyways, and what little it does isn’t as hazardous as you might think.
(Not to mention, it was actually part of one of those mineral collection kits that you can like, just buy online or in a store. Pretty sure that if it was seriously dangerous to my health, it wouldn’t be available for easy purchase. Also, at undergrad I literally sat next to a cabinet that set off a Geiger counter because it had so much pitchblende in it, but the professors weren’t concerned at all.)
HOWEVER
Out of an abundance of caution, I keep my chromite and my pitchblende in a sealed container (as of this morning, a nice glass jar that used to house a Bath and Bodyworks candle) and store said jar not in my bedroom. I’m 100% sure that my samples aren’t actually dangerous for me to have, but I like to take precautions anyways. Blame my microbiology and chemistry background for that.
Bonus: I mentioned a few other minerals in the tags of my post about my Danger Jar. Namely, cinnabar and orpiment.
Cinnabar is a beautiful red mineral that is also incredibly toxic because it’s mercury sulfide.
Orpiment is a beautiful orange-yellow mineral that is also incredibly toxic because it’s arsenic sulfide.
There are actually two other arsenic sulfide minerals that I would also like for my collection, in addition to orpiment.
Realgar
Arsenopyrite
All of these I have handled in mineralogy (I think...I can’t remember if I handled cinnabar or not). And all the professor said was “Wash your hands before you eat, because these have mercury and arsenic in them.”
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