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What the name
means: Germanium is named after the
country Germany. (The Latin name for
Germany is Germania).
Who identified
germanium? Arguably, it was Dmitri
Mendeleev who first identified Germanium as
element 32 in his periodic table. He knew
that element 32 must exist and he called it
eka-silicon, meaning “the next (after)”
silicon in group 4. It was a German
analytical chemist named Clemens Alexander
Winkler who recognised the new element in
1886. He has been asked to analyse an ore
from a Saxony mine. He found that the ore
contained zinc, sulphur, iron oxides and a
new element that he called Germanium.
About germanium:
Germanium is a metalloid, which
means that it has similar properties to
both metals and non-metals. Germanium is
extremely rare but it can be extracted from
certain zinc and copper ores. It is a hard,
shiny, silvery metal with the same crystal
structure as diamond. |
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