12/10/2020 10 Interesting Sulfur Facts

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10 Interesting Sulfur Facts

It occurs in food, household products, and our bodies

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Martin Moos / Getty Images

By Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.

Updated October 02, 2019

Sulfur is element number 16 on the periodic table, with element symbol S and an atomic weight
of 32.066. This common nonmetal occurs in food, many household products, and even your
own body.

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Sulfur Facts
Here are 10 interesting facts about sulfur:

1. Sulfur is an essential element for life. It's found in amino acids (cysteine and
methionine) and proteins. Sulfur compounds are why onions make you cry, why
asparagus gives urine a weird odor, why garlic has a distinctive aroma, and why rotten
eggs smell so horrible.

2. Although many sulfur compounds have a strong smell, the pure element is odorless.
Sulfur compounds also affect your sense of smell. For example, hydrogen sulfide (H2S,
the culprit behind the rotten egg odor) actually deadens the sense of smell, so the odor
is very strong at first and then vanishes. This is unfortunate because hydrogen sulfide is
a toxic and potentially deadly gas. Elemental sulfur is considered nontoxic.

3. Mankind has known about sulfur since ancient times. The element, also known as
brimstone, primarily comes from volcanoes. While most chemical elements occur only
in compounds, sulfur is one of relatively few elements that occur in pure form.

4. At room temperature and pressure, sulfur is a yellow solid. It's usually seen as a powder,
but it forms crystals, too. One interesting feature of the crystals is that they
spontaneously change shape according to temperature. To observe the transition, melt
sulfur, allow it to cool until it crystallizes, and observe the crystal shape over time.

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5. Were you surprised you could crystallize sulfur simply by cooling the melted powder?
This is a common method of growing metal crystals. While sulfur is a nonmetal, like
metals it won't readily dissolve in water or other solvents (although it will dissolve in
carbon disulfide). If you tried the crystal project, another surprise might have been the
color of sulfur liquid when you heated the powder. Liquid sulfur can appear blood-red.
Volcanoes that spew molten sulfur display another interesting feature of the element: It
burns with a blue flame from the sulfur dioxide that is produced. Volcanoes with sulfur
appear to run with blue lava.

6. How you spell the name of element number 16 likely depends on where and when you
grew up. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted the
sulfur spelling in 1990, as did the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1992. Up to this point,
the spelling was sulphur in Britain and in countries using the Roman languages. The
original spelling was the Latin word sulfur, which was Hellenized to sulphur.

7. Sulfur has many uses. It's a component of gunpowder and is believed to have been used
in the ancient flamethrower weapon called Greek Fire. It's a key component of sulfuric
acid, which is used in labs and in making other chemicals. It's found in the antibiotic
penicillin and is used for fumigation against diseases and pests. Sulfur is a component
of fertilizers and also pharmaceuticals.

8. Sulfur is created as part of the alpha process in massive stars. It is the 10th most
abundant element in the universe. It's found in meteorites and on Earth mainly near
volcanoes and hot springs. The abundance of the element is higher in the core than in
the Earth's crust. It's estimated there is enough sulfur on Earth to make two bodies the
size of the Moon. Common minerals that contain sulfur include pyrite or fool's gold
(iron sulfide), cinnabar (mercury sulfide), galena (lead sulfide), and gypsum (calcium
sulfate).

9. Some organisms are able to use sulfur compounds as an energy source. An example are
cave bacteria, which produce special stalactites called snottites that drip sulfuric acid.
The acid is sufficiently concentrated that it can burn skin and eat holes through clothes
if you stand beneath the minerals. Natural dissolution of minerals by the acid carves out
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y y
new caves.

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10. Although people always knew about sulfur, it wasn't recognized until later as an element
(except by alchemists, who also considered fire and earth elements). It was 1777 when
Antoine Lavoisier provided convincing evidence that the substance was indeed its own
unique element, worthy of a place on the periodic table. The element has oxidation
states ranging from -2 to +6, allowing it to form compounds with all the other elements
except the noble gases.

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