Meet the Chemiballs: The Metagaming Metalloids!
So you know metals? They’re metallic, conductive, and usually form positively charged ions? And you know nonmetals? They’re not metallic, insulators, and make negatively charged ions. So yeah, what do you call stuff that’s like, not one of those two things? Y’know, semiconductors and shit.
Metals are only metallic because they’re bad at holding on to their valence electrons, and elements tend to get worse at that the closer they are to the bottom left of the periodic table. Because physics.
But there’s a stair-shaped boundary line between the two where it’s really hard to decide if they’re one or the other so we sort of just gave up and called them metalloids.
Contents:
Boron; the Least Boring Metalloid!
Boron is weird. Is it anything like any of the other elements in its group? No. Is it anything like any other element in existence? Also no. It’s just fuckin’ weird.
Boron is a nonmetal with a positive charge. I know I’ve included it on a list of metalloids, but most of the justification for that comes from its charge and semiconductor ability. The physical properties of pure boron are more like that of a nonmetal.
Boron has three valence electrons, and it wants to get rid of all three of them. Normally when two atoms bond they’re sharing an electron, but Boron likes to overshare a bit. When boron is bonded, it will gain a slight positive charge. This makes many boron containing molecules very effective as lewis acids.
I don’t know why lewis acids are called that, they aren’t anything like acids. They’re chemicals that can contribute a positive charge to other molecules without fully bonding to them.
Boron has a trigonal planar configuration, which is pretty rare in chemistry. Boronball likes to form bonds in a flat triangle shape. Many boron molecules are Dorito-shaped.
Boron is similar to carbon and silicon in that it can bond to other boron atoms.
Silicon; the Silliest Metalloid!
Silicon is a lot like carbon, hence why some scientists think that alien life could potentially be silicon-based instead of carbon-based. But let’s be honest; aliens made of silicon aren’t silicon-based, they’re silicon-cringe.
Siliconball is similar to Carbonball in almost every way, except sillier, hence the name. Siliconball is heavier than carbonball and generally forms weaker bonds.
There are silicon equivalents of most types of organic (carbon-based) molecules, but they’re usually worse. Alkanes, which is the chemistryese word for hydrocarbon (which is also chemist for petroleum chemicals) have a silicon equivalent called silanes. But silanes are super unstable since the silicon-hydrogen bond is weaker than the bond hydrogen forms with oxygen in the air.
That said, silicon forms extremely strong chemical bonds with the strongly electronegative elements, nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine. This is why silicates (quartz, glass, etc), and silicone (old breast implants, sex toys, etc) are so nontoxic and resistant to corrosion and stuff. They’re just a bunch of alternating oxygens and silicons bonded to each other. There just aren’t many chemiballs powerful enough to break up a silicon-oxygen bond except for really extreme stuff like hydrofluoric acid. That’s why we use glass for lab equipment.
Germanium; the Germanest Metalloid!
Germaniumball, as you might guess, is named after the alchemist, mystic, philosopher, musician, social influencer, and ascended master Count Saint Germain. Master of the Violet Flame. Chohan of the Seventh Ray…. Nah, I’m just kidding, it’s named after Germany.
It’s pretty good as a semiconductor, which is useful in electronics for doing electrical things.
Germanium has a very strange and unique property. It’s normally opaque like you’d expect a metallic (metalloidic?) substance to be. But under infrared light, it’s clear as glass. So it’s used to make lenses for infrared cameras and stuff.
Germanium compounds are also really good in other optics applications. Pretty much anything with a lens or fiber optic cable likely contains some amount of germanium.
Arsenic; the Most Toxic Metalloid!
Arsenicball is very similar to phosphorus, which is used in DNA, so much so that it’s pretty darn difficult to evolve a way to tell the two apart. In fact, the only major difference between the two is that if you put arsenic in your DNA, you die. That, and arsenic is a metalloid while phosphorus is a nonmetal.
I know it’s a bit disappointing that I have so little to say about one of the few actually well-known elements. But there just isn’t a whole lot else interesting about it other than being extremely toxic. It used to be used for stuff until people realized how dangerous it is. Unlike some other elements that are just so useful that we kind of just pretend they aren’t poison *cough cough Lead*, arsenic just doesn’t have enough uniquely useful properties. These days, it’s only used in niche industrial applications and as poison.
Antimony; the Opposite of Mony!
Most of antimony’s historical use was as an early form of mascara or eye makeup known as kohl (among other names). You know how ancient Egyptians are depicted as wearing a lot of eye makeup to protect their eyes from the bright sun? That’s it.
Antimonyball isn’t used in makeup so much anymore. Turns out that it’s pretty toxic, which is unfortunate because it’s also useful in electronics. But we, as a society, have decided that iPhones are more important. So try not to eat too many of those.
You may immediately notice that antimonyball’s symbol is Sb, which isn’t so much an abbreviation of antimony as it is two completely unrelated letters. That’s because elemental symbols are based on the element’s Latin name. Antimony’s latin name is stibium. You might also notice that “antimony” is a weird name for an element, which it is. You’d think it’s called that because it’s the antiparticle of money or something, but that’s just people being too lazy to pronounce the “-um” in “antimonium”.
The name originates from the medieval period, the true meaning of which has been lost to time. My favorite translation is “monk killer” because of the implication that some monk moonlighting as an alchemist discovered it by poisoning himself.
Tellurium; the Stinkiest Metalloid!
If you get Tellurium inside your body it can get into your sweat and form chemicals that make you smell like really bad garlic. This is the case for selenium as well, but not quite as much.
This is because your normal sweat and exhaled breath contain some sulfur chemicals. Telluriumball and seleniumball look a lot like sulfurball. The part of your body that makes the sweat chemicals can’t really tell the difference. Your nose, unfortunately, is more than able to tell the difference.
You know how they used to put lead in gasoline as an antiknocking agent? Apparently, tellurium was also a contender for that. But then the inventor, Thomas Midgley Jr. (arguably the evilest mad scientist in history), breathed in engine exhaust from the tellurium gasoline. He then wasn’t allowed to sleep in the same room as his wife for several months because of how badly he smelled. He figured people probably wouldn’t want to buy his tellurium gasoline.
Don’t feel bad for him though. He would go on to invent leaded gasoline, get severe lead poisoning from it, lie to everyone that lead is safe despite suffering from severe lead poisoning, then die. He also invented CFCs which are the things in hairspray that put a hole in the ozone layer.
Polonium; the Radioactive Metalloid!
Polonium is pretty radioactive, but not in a fun way. It’s just super unstable so it’s not used for much. Putin uses it as a calling card to assassinate people since no one besides a major nuclear power with a lot of heavy element research, like Russia, would have access to radioactive Poloniumballs.
Polonium is another country element. It’s named after Curie’s homeland of Poland. I’ve drawn it upside down as a reference to Polandball, whose flag traditionally is drawn upside down leading to it being confused for Indonesiaball. If you didn’t know, Indonesia’s flag is identical to the Polish flag turned upside down. Since this is funny, the Countryball community decided to just draw Indonesiaball with a culturally appropriate hat (or sometimes inappropriate).
Addendum
For more Chemiball stuff, check out r/Chemiballs. This is a shockingly obscure community and deserves more attention.
Also, I recently got a mailing list! Be sure to subscribe to that. I promise it’s more than just another mailing list, expect the same level of quality and humor in it as you do in my articles. So if you want more of my style, be sure to get on that. There should be a signup widget nearby.
Citations and further reading;
Periodic Videos – YouTube. (n.d.). Www.youtube.com. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/@periodicvideos
Muller, D., Stewart, C., & Barnshaw, K. (2022). The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History. [Review of The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History.]. In O. Trenton (Ed.), YouTube. https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA
Zimmer, C. “This Paper Should Not Have Been Published”; Scientists see fatal flaws in the NASA study of arsenic-based life. Slate. Posted on slate.com December 7, 2010, accessed December 9, 2010.
Metalloid. (2022, August 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalloid
“aliens made of silicon aren’t silicon-based, they’re silicon-cringe.”
The Horta from Star Trek just got burned!