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The Chem Smartp
hones have become an essential part of our lives. It is hard to believe that 20 years ago, hardly anyone owned a mobile phone, but now we cannot seem to take our eyes off them. Every time our phone goes off, we rush to pick it up whether to check a message, watch a new video or play a game. It is truly amazing that we can now surf the internet, chat with friends and listen to music with something that fits in the palm of our hands. But all this would not be possible without chemistry. Metals are what make our smartphones. There are up to 63 different metals that may be found in an average cell phone. Of these 63 metals, one obscure group of metals, called the rare-earth metals, plays a significant role. This group of rare metals consists of Scandium and Yttrium, as well as the lanthanide metals (not including Promethium as it is radioactive), which is usually seen as the first of the two free-floating rows at the bottom of the periodic table. These rare-earth metals are what allow us to see the bright reds, greens and blues on our screens, and they are also responsible for our phone vibrations, which would not be possible without Neodymium and Dysprosium. There are reasons that smartphones do not crack easily every time we drop them. Smartphone screens are designed to be very tough. The tough structure of our screens today was formed by accident. In 1952, Corning, a chemist, was to heat a sample of glass to 600°C in a furnace, but a defective thermostat caused it to heat to 900°C. To Corning’s surprise, the glass had not melted and damaged the furnace, so he used his tongs to take it out and dropped it on the floor, which was another accident. Again, to his surprise, rather than shattering, it bounced. At that moment, the first synthetic glass-ceramic in the world was born. The material shares many properties of glass and ceramic, their combination making the material tougher and stronger than each of the materials by themselves. Due to this huge success, Corning tried to invent a
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