RUBIDIUM (RB)

last update 01 oct 08

* Rubidium is a member of the alkali-metals family:

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   RUBIDIUM / Rb / 37

   A soft, white metal that is so highly reactive that it will not
   only ignite in water, but even in air and with ice.  Two isotopes
   are found in nature:  Rb<85/37> (72%), which is stable, and
   Rb<87/37>, which is radioactive, with a half-life of 50 billion
   years.

     atomic weight:       85.4678
     abundance:           22nd
     density:             1.532 g/cc
     melting point:       38.89 C
     boiling point:       686 C
     valence:             1 2 3 4
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Rubidium has no serious commercial applications. Anything that could be done with it can almost always be done by sodium or potassium, which are more common. As a result, nobody makes much effort to refine rubidium, and such as is produced for lab studies is preposterously expensive.