Cobalt Report

Cobalt is one of the natural elements that happens to be found throughout the natural environment. This natural element is present in trace amounts in sols, plants, water and our diet. When cobalt is in its pure form it is a steel-grey to black shinny hard metal. Cobalt can also exit as cobalt II and cobalt III which forms a number of both organic and inorganic salts. Cobalt in small proportion is essential to good health. Cobalt is only found in the environment in chemically bonded form, save for small deposits found in alloys and natural meteoric iron. Very little proportion of cobalt is found in rocks, soils, surface and underground water bodies, animals and plants. The key sources of the elements in the natural environments includes; soils, dust, volcanic eruptions, marine water and forest fires. Cobalt can also get into the environment the through auto mobiles, burning of coal and oils, and from industries that use the metal or its compound.

Cobalt has variety of uses which ranges from it being used for jewellery and paint because of its high heat resistance when in its alloy form. Some radioactive isotopes of this element (cobalt 60) is used in the health sectors for the treatment of nuclear medicines and also for research purposes. In the atmosphere cobalt stays for only few hours (a day or two) but can stay in soils and water bodies for a number of years. Most of the Earth's cobalt is in its core. Cobalt is of relatively low abundance in the Earth's crust and in natural waters, from which it is precipitated as the highly insoluble cobalt sulfine CoS. Although the average level of cobalt in soils is 8 ppm, there are soils with as little as 0.1 ppm and others with as much as 70 ppm. In the marine environment cobalt is needed by blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and other nitrogen fixing organisms. Cobalt is not found as a free metal and is generally found in the form of ores. Cobalt is usually not mined alone, and tends to be produced as a by-product of nickel and copper mining activities. The main ores of cobalt are cobaltite, erythrite, glaucodot, and skutterudite. The world's major producers of cobalt are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mainland China, Zambia, Russia and Australia. It is also found in Finland, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. World production is 17.000 tonnes per year.