Molybdenum is expected to be the next generation of semiconductor materials
Molybdenum molybdenite and galena, graphite appearance is very similar, are soft, black, with metallic luster of the ore, not easy to distinguish. It was not until 1778 that Scheler, a Swedish chemist, discovered the difference between the three ores in his experiments. And instead of finding lead in molybdenite, he accidentally discovered and isolated an unknown substance called molybdate. Then, with the help of another Swedish chemist, Scheler mixed molybdate, charcoal and linseed oil, sealed them and heated them with a fire to obtain the earliest samples of molybdenum metal. Because the resulting molybdenum was so weak, brittle and of little use, it remained a chemical laboratory specimen until the end of the 19th century.
In 1891, The Snider company in France took the lead in using molybdenum as an alloying element to produce mol-containing deck, and found its excellent performance and lower density, and began to gradually replace tungsten as an alloying element of steel, thus opening the prologue of industrial application of molybdenum. In 1910, the production industry of molybdenum steel developed rapidly, and molybdenum became an important component of all kinds of heat-resistant and anticorrosive structural steels, as well as the important component of non-ferrous nickel and chromium alloys. Up to now, about 80% of the molybdenum ore mined is still used in the iron and steel industry.
It was later discovered that molybdenum could potentially replace graphene in the electronics industry. Molybdenum disulfide has been successfully used to manufacture molybdenum-based flexible microprocessing chips by California Institute of Nanotechnology. The chips are 20 percent smaller than their silicon-based counterparts, consume very little power, and are extremely flexible and thin enough to be attached to human skin or even implanted into the body. According to the British journal Nature Nanotechnology, monolayer molybdenite materials show good semiconductor properties, some of which even exceed the widely used silicon and the hot research graphene. It is a strong competitor to replace silicon based chips in the future and is expected to become the next generation of semiconductor materials.
The use of molybdenum is not limited to materials science, but also plays an important role in the field of catalysis. Industrial chemists use catalysts based on molybdenum oxide to selectively oxidize alcohols to aldehydes. In 2005, Richard Schrock won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on catalysts for olefin redecomposition. In the biological field, the catalysis of molybdenase is more common and important. For example, in the process of nitrogen fixation in plants, most nitrogenases have a molybdenum atom on their active site, and their catalytic effect on nitrogen fixation will be more efficient than that of ammonia synthesis industry. Molybdenase can not only reduce nitrogen to ammonium ions, but also use other molybdenase enzymes to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen to formate ions, eventually to acetyl-coA. These microorganisms successfully convert about 1011 tons of acetate from carbon dioxide each year using molybdenase. At present, molybdenum compounds have been one of the most widely used catalysts, widely used in chemical, petroleum, plastics, textile, fertilizer and other industries.
Molybdenum is one of the essential trace elements in the body's main function is to participate in the reaction between sulfur, iron, copper, xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase and sulfurous acid oxidase play a necessary factor of biological energy to the body in the process of oxidation reduction electron transport material and sulfur-containing amino acids, purine metabolism has certain influence. Appropriate amount of molybdenum can promote human development, enhance the storage of oxygen in the body, inhibit tumor, maintain the energy metabolism of myocardium and so on. Ammonium molybdate is a drug to help patients supplement molybdenum element, which is mainly used in patients who rely on intravenous high nutrition for a long time to help the human body synthesize a variety of molybdenum-containing enzymes.
