Editing Boron group (section)

==History==
The boron group has had many names over the years. According to former conventions it was Group IIIB in the European naming system and Group IIIA in the American. The group has also gained two collective names, "earth metals" and "triels". The latter name is derived from the Latin prefix ''tri-'' ("three") and refers to the three [[valence electrons]] that all of these elements, without exception, have in their [[valence shell]]s.<ref name="C. Kotz, Treichel, R. Townsend 2009 351"/> The name "triels" was first suggested by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in 1970.<ref name=Girolami>{{cite journal|last1=Girolami|first1=GS|title=Origin of the Terms Pnictogen and Pnictide|journal=J Chem Educ|date=2009|volume=86|issue=10|pages=1200–1201|doi=10.1021/ed086p1200 |bibcode=2009JChEd..86.1200G }}</ref>

Boron was known to the ancient Egyptians, but only in the mineral [[borax]]. The metalloid element was not known in its pure form until 1808, when [[Humphry Davy]] was able to extract it by the method of [[electrolysis]]. Davy devised an experiment in which he dissolved a boron-containing compound in water and sent an electric current through it, causing the elements of the compound to separate into their pure states. To produce larger quantities he shifted from electrolysis to reduction with sodium. Davy named the element ''boracium''. At the same time two French chemists, [[Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac]] and [[Louis Jacques Thénard]], used iron to reduce boric acid. The boron they produced was [[oxidize]]d to boron oxide.<ref>{{cite book |title=The History and Use of Our Earth's Chemical Elements: A Reference Guide |last=Krebs |first=Robert E. |year=2006 |publisher=Greenwood Press |page= 176 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yb9xTj72vNAC&pg=PA182|isbn=978-0-313-33438-2}}</ref><ref name="weeks12">{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1021/ed009p1386|title = The discovery of the elements. XII. Other elements isolated with the aid of potassium and sodium: Beryllium, boron, silicon, and aluminium|year = 1932|last1 = Weeks|first1 = Mary Elvira|author-link1=Mary Elvira Weeks|journal = Journal of Chemical Education|volume = 9|issue = 8|page = 1386|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9.1386W }}</ref>

Aluminium, like boron, was first known in minerals before it was finally extracted from [[alum]], a common mineral in some areas of the world. [[Antoine Lavoisier]] and Humphry Davy had each separately tried to extract it. Although neither succeeded, Davy had given the metal its current name. It was only in 1825 that the Danish scientist [[Hans Christian Ørsted]] successfully prepared a rather impure form of the element. Many improvements followed, a significant advance being made just two years later by [[Friedrich Wöhler]], whose slightly modified procedure still yielded an impure product. The first pure sample of aluminium is credited to [[Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville]], who substituted sodium for potassium in the procedure. At that time aluminium was considered precious, and it was displayed next to such metals as gold and silver.<ref name="weeks12"/><ref>[[#Downs1993|Downs]], p. 15</ref> The method used today, [[electrolysis]] of aluminium oxide dissolved in cryolite, was developed by [[Charles Martin Hall]] and [[Paul Héroult]] in the late 1880s.<ref name="weeks12"/>

[[Image:Sphalerite2USGOV.jpg|thumb|The mineral zinc blende, more commonly known as [[sphalerite]], in which indium can occur.]]

Thallium, the heaviest stable element in the boron group, was discovered by [[William Crookes]] and [[Claude-Auguste Lamy]] in 1861. Unlike gallium and indium, thallium had not been predicted by [[Dmitri Mendeleev]], having been discovered before Mendeleev invented the periodic table. As a result, no one was really looking for it until the 1850s when Crookes and Lamy were examining residues from sulfuric acid production. In the [[spectroscopy|spectra]] they saw a completely new line, a streak of deep green, which Crookes named after the Greek word θαλλός ({{transliteration|grc|thallos}}), referring to a green shoot or twig. Lamy was able to produce larger amounts of the new metal and determined most of its chemical and physical properties.<ref name="Weeks13"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Encyclopedia of the elements: technical data, history, processing, applications |last=Enghag |first=Per |year=2004 |page= 71|publisher=Wiley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aff7sEea39EC |isbn=978-3-527-30666-4|bibcode=2004eetd.book.....E }}</ref>

Indium is the fourth element of the boron group but was discovered before the third, gallium, and after the fifth, thallium. In 1863 [[Ferdinand Reich]] and his assistant, [[Hieronymous Theodor Richter]], were looking in a sample of the mineral zinc blende, also known as [[sphalerite]] (ZnS), for the spectroscopic lines of the newly discovered element thallium. Reich heated the ore in a coil of [[platinum]] metal and observed the lines that appeared in a [[spectroscope]]. Instead of the green thallium lines that he expected, he saw a new line of deep indigo-blue. Concluding that it must come from a new element, they named it after the characteristic indigo color it had produced.<ref name="Weeks13">{{cite journal
 | doi = 10.1021/ed009p1413
 | title = The discovery of the elements. XIII. Some spectroscopic discoveries
 | year = 1932
 | last1 = Weeks
 | first1 = Mary Elvira
 |author-link1=Mary Elvira Weeks| journal = Journal of Chemical Education
 | volume = 9
 | issue = 8
 | page = 1413|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9.1413W }}</ref><ref name="Emsley 2006 192">[[#Emsley|Emsley]], p. 192</ref>

Gallium minerals were not known before August 1875, when the element itself was discovered. It was one of the elements that the inventor of the periodic table, [[Dmitri Mendeleev]], had predicted to exist six years earlier. While examining the spectroscopic lines in zinc blende the French chemist [[Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran]] found indications of a new element in the ore. In just three months he was able to produce a sample, which he purified by dissolving it in a [[potassium hydroxide]] (KOH) solution and sending an electric current through it. The next month he presented his findings to the French Academy of Sciences, naming the new element after the Greek name for Gaul, modern France.<ref>[[#Emsley|Emsley]], pp. 158–159</ref><ref name="Weeks15">{{Cite journal|title = The discovery of the elements. XV. Some elements predicted by Mendeleeff |pages = 1605–1619|last = Weeks|first =  Mary Elvira |author-link=Mary Elvira Weeks|doi=10.1021/ed009p1605|journal = [[Journal of Chemical Education]] |volume =9 |issue =9 |year = 1932|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9.1605W }}</ref>

The last confirmed element in the boron group, nihonium, was not discovered but rather created or synthesized. The element's synthesis was first reported by the Dubna [[Joint Institute for Nuclear Research]] team in Russia and the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] in the United States, though it was the Dubna team who successfully conducted the experiment in August 2003. Nihonium was discovered in the [[decay chain]] of [[moscovium]], which produced a few precious atoms of nihonium. The results were published in January of the following year. Since then around 13 atoms have been synthesized and various isotopes characterized. However, their results did not meet the stringent criteria for being counted as a discovery, and it was the later [[RIKEN]] experiments of 2004 aimed at directly synthesizing nihonium that were acknowledged by [[IUPAC]] as the discovery.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Experiments on the synthesis of element 115 in the reaction <sup>243</sup>Am(<sup>48</sup>Ca,xn)<sup>291−x</sup>115| doi=10.1103/PhysRevC.69.021601|year=2004|journal=Physical Review C| volume=69| page=021601| last1=Oganessian|first1=Yu. Ts.|last2=Utyonkoy| first2=V.|last3=Lobanov|first3=Yu.|last4=Abdullin|first4=F.|last5=Polyakov|first5=A. |last6=Shirokovsky|first6=I. |last7=Tsyganov|first7=Yu. |last8=Gulbekian|first8=G. |last9=Bogomolov |first9=S.|issue=2|bibcode = 2004PhRvC..69b1601O |url=http://www.jinr.ru/publish/Preprints/2003/178(E7-2003-178).pdf}}</ref>

===Etymology===
The name "boron" comes from the Arabic word for the mineral borax, (بورق, ''boraq'') which was known before boron was ever extracted. The "-on" suffix is thought to have been taken from "carbon".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Word-Building Strategies in Modern English|last=Lavrova|first=Natalie|page=95|year=2010 |isbn=978-3-640-53719-8|location=Germany |publisher=GRIN Verlag |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Uy0uwU6n84wC&pg=PA95}}</ref> Aluminium was named by Humphry Davy in the early 1800s. It is derived from the Greek word ''alumen'', meaning bitter salt, or the Latin ''[[alum]]'', the mineral.<ref>{{Cite book|title=History and perspectives of language study|author=Bugarski, Ranko|editor=Tomić, Olga Mišeska|editor2=Milorad, Radovanović|page=211|year=2000 |isbn=90-272-3692-5|location=Amsterdam, the Netherlands |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing Co. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B9clK7Jb6woC&pg=PA211}}</ref> Gallium is derived from the Latin ''Gallia'', referring to France, the place of its discovery.<ref name="Weeks">{{Cite journal|title = The discovery of the elements. XIII. Some elements predicted by Mendeleeff |pages = 1605–1619|last = Weeks|first =  Mary Elvira |author-link=Mary Elvira Weeks|doi=10.1021/ed009p1605|journal = [[Journal of Chemical Education]] |volume =9 |issue =9 |year = 1932|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9.1605W }}</ref> Indium comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', meaning [[indigo dye]], and refers to the element's prominent indigo spectroscopic line.<ref>{{cite journal|title = Indium|last = Venetskii|first = S.|journal = Metallurgist|volume = 15|issue = 2|pages = 148–150|year = 1971|doi = 10.1007/BF01088126}}</ref> Thallium, like indium, is named after the Greek word for the color of its spectroscopic line: {{transliteration|grc|thallos}}, meaning a green twig or shoot.<ref>{{OEtymD|thallium}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| doi = 10.1021/ed009p2078| title = The discovery of the elements. XIII. Supplementary note on the discovery of thallium| year = 1932| last1 = Weeks| first1 = Mary Elvira|author-link1=Mary Elvira Weeks| journal = Journal of Chemical Education| volume = 9| issue = 12| pages = 2078|bibcode = 1932JChEd...9.2078W }}</ref> "Nihonium" is named after [[Japan]] (''Nihon'' in Japanese), where it was discovered.