All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 48, a transition metal
A soft metal behind brilliant yellow and red paints and rechargeable batteries, and a toxic one behind a mass poisoning in Japan.
Period 5, group 12. The other transition metals are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Cadmium gives up its two 5s electrons to form Cd²⁺, its only common ion, much like zinc above it.
No ores are mined for cadmium alone. It occurs in zinc ores, especially sphalerite, and is recovered during zinc refining.
Friedrich Stromeyer found it in 1817 while investigating zinc carbonate that turned yellow when heated. The name comes from the Latin cadmia, an old name for zinc carbonate ore.
Nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries used most of it, though they are being phased out. Cadmium telluride makes thin-film solar panels, cadmium pigments give artists' paints brilliant yellows, oranges and reds, and cadmium absorbs neutrons in some reactor control rods.
Toxic, and a cause of cancer. Cadmium from mining waste in the Jinzū River basin of Japan caused itai-itai disease in the 20th century, which softened bones and caused severe pain.