Skip to main content

The Fake Silver Stone

кобальтин
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Горный музей

Today, this stone, considered a pariah throughout the Middle Ages, is one of the most sought-after. Without it, there would be no modern electric cars... Although his price, is the one of crippled children's lives.

A stone that miners have long preferred to avoid is called cobaltine. This infernal name comes from Saxony, which five centuries ago was a major mining centre for silver, copper and other non-ferrous metals. The mineral received this name because of the cobalt in its composition. In those days, this name was used by the local miners to describe evil spirits that inhabited the mines and interfered with mining activities. Most frequently, these evil forces were represented by dwarfs. Legend has it that they appeared in places rich in minerals, pretending to be at work in the pit. In reality, these mythical creatures would steal silver directly from the ore. They would then render it useless and even dangerous for the seekers of the precious metal.

кобальтин
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Горный музей

The legend did not arise from nothing. Ores containing cobalt did indeed mislead miners. People often came across crystals shiny as steel, white or grey, which looked like silver. Trying to extract this valuable component, they burned the samples, and arsenic was released from them, poisoning the miners. There was, of course, no silver in the samples. There was a custom among German workers to emphasise the properties of cobalt ores and to call them "kobold" or "kobelt", which meant gnome, house-breaker, unscrupulous rascal. This is how the "unclean" ore got its name. It was discovered in 1735, when the Swedish chemist Georg Brandt, while researching the properties of arsenic, discovered an unknown grey metal, which it was decided to retain the name "cobalt" for. Brandt also discovered that the salts of this element tinted glass blue.

кобальтин
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Горный музей

As it turned out, this property of cobalt minerals had been in use since several millennia before Christ. During excavations in Egypt, artificial stones, intensely blue in colour, were found to contain this metal, and blue mosaics were discovered in the ruins of Pompeii. The method of producing cobalt paint, kept in ancient times in the strictest confidence, has been lost after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Bohemian merchant Schürer managed to re-create it. He used the same minerals from Saxony as the raw material for making blue pigment that was resistant to external influences. Later the recipe was taken over by Holland, then France and Germany where they used cobalt minerals to colour porcelain. Some European cities still have architectural monuments from the Middle Ages with blue cobalt glass. They include Amiens Cathedral and Reims Cathedral in France, St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and one of the mausoleums in Samarkand.

кобальтин
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Горный музей

It is because of cobalt that cobaltite is important economically. It is the main ore for producing the metal that is so sought after in today's market. The chemical element is part of modern electric vehicles, namely used as a cathode (negative electrode) together with nickel and manganese in lithium-ion batteries. Cobalt has almost doubled in price in 2021 due to constant demand from manufacturers. Analysts expect prices this year for the world's most expensive metal for battery production to reach $28.50 a pound and rise to $40 in 2024. Meanwhile, major manufacturers such as Tesla and Volkswagen have pledged to reduce their use of cobalt, which relies heavily on mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the near future. This is primarily due to the use of child labour. Experts estimate that more than ten per cent of supplies are mined by hand and often by minors.

кобальтин
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Горный музей

However, neither the steel, nor the aerospace industry can do without cobalt in the modern world, so it is unlikely that mining will ever stop.
Translated by Diego Monterrey, for Northwest Forpost.