Correct. It's a transition metal, all transition metals are good at making brightly coloured salts, but some are better than others (consider Manganese, for example), The colour, and the intensity of the colour depend on a wide range of factors, including counter ions, and the nature of any complexes. (for example, hi-spin versus lo-spin configurations).
Highly toxic pigments (avoid at all costs) Lead Red (Red 105) Contains lead Molybdate Orange (Red 104) Contains lead and chromates Chrome Orange (Orange 21) Contains lead and chromates Mercadmium Orange (Orange 23) Contains cadmium, mercury and sulfides Barium Yellow (Lemon Yellow, Barium Chromate, Yellow 31) Contains barium and chromates Chrome Yellow (Chrome Lemon, Primrose Yellow, Lead Chromate, Yellow 34) Contains lead and chromates Zinc Yellow (Zinc Chromate, Yellow 36) Contains chromates Naples Yellow (Lead Antimonite, Antimony Yellow, Yellow 41) Contains lead and antimony King's Yellow (Yellow 39) Contains arsenic Strontium Yellow (Yellow 32) Contains strontium and chromates Zinc Yellow (Yellow 36) Contains chromate Chrome Green (Milori Green, Prussian Green, Green 15) Contains chromates Emerald Green (Paris Green, Vienna Green, Green 21) Contains arsenite Scheele's Green (Schloss Green, Green 22) Contains arsenite Cobalt Violet (Violet 14) Contains cobalt and arsenite Flake White (Cremnitz White, Lead White, White 1) Contains lead Lithopone (White 5) Contains zinc sulfide Zinc Sulfide White (White 7) Contains zinc sulfide Witherite (White 10) Contains barium Antimony White (White 11) Contains antimony Antimony Black Contains antimony sulfide from http://captainpackrat.com/furry/toxicity.htm Paris Green caused illness and death in many artists. Nice molecule though: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Would that be due to licking the brush to straighten the bristles? I heard a story many years ago about some factory workers who's job it was to paint the glow-in-dark highlights on watch faces. They were getting cancer because they would use their mouths to straighten the fine brush bristles to a sharp point.
I don't know about the others on your list, but chrome green is not the same thing as Prussian green.
That would have been Radium, I think. A schoolpal of mine brought in an old family watch, and it sent the geiger counter crazy.
Heh-heh! Why did you feel the need to repeat what I said? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The bit about the watch was nice - but it's not radium - it was a radium salt as I already explained.
Sorry. Didn't notice your other reply. Regarding watch. We also had stuff under lock and key in a room with radioactive warning signs on it. About 1/1000th the radioactivity of the watch. Wasn't there a schoolboy arrested in the US once, for trying to make an atom bomb in his garden shed, with radium scraped from old watches and clocks. In pre terrorist days, he probably didn't get into too much trouble But he definitely would have got a severe ticking off.
Close - actually it was the radioactive source in ionizing smoke detectors that he was collecting. I really doubt that there are a large number those watch faces still in circulation today.
No, it was both. See: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html You can also go to Wikipedia and read about 'neutron howitzers' which he was trying to make. DON'T DO THIS AT HOME. It actually works, and can be quite dangerous. Neutron howitzers were the neutron source of choice before we discovered fission and reactors, producing far greater abundance of neutrons, which we daily exploit to make our Moly cows (except when our medical isotope-production reactors are down, such as now).
