Bismuth is a brittle metal with a white, silver-pink hue, often occurring in its native form with an iridescent oxide tarnish showing many refractive colors from yellow to blue. Of interest to hobbyists are the pseudocubic "hopper" crystals that are always present on the laboratory produced specimens, they are not seen in but only the rarest of natural crystals.
Bismuth is rarely found in nature in its elemental form. Of growing interest in rock shops, however, are laboratory-grown bismuth crystals. These crystals, while not natural, are nonetheless very interesting to the mineral hobbyist and to others. The unique look that these clusters offer is really indescribable. Its color consisits of iridescent metallic yellow, blue and green hues. Color is silver white often with a multi-colored iridescent tarnish. Hopper crystals are a unique crystallographic curiosity Just the edges extend outward from the center of the crystal leaving hollow stairstep faces between these edges. The hopper crystals form due to the disparity of growth rates between the crystal edges and the crystal faces.
Application:
It is mainly used for preparation of compound semiconductor, high purity alloys, electronic cooling components, thermoelectric conversion elements and atomic screening of the heap carrier of liquid cooling. Bismuth metal is used in the manufacture of low melting solders and fusible alloys as well as low toxicity bird shot and fishing sinkers. Certain bismuth compounds are also manufactured and used as pharmaceuticals. Industry makes use of bismuth compounds as catalysts in manifacturing acrylonitrile, the starting material for synthetic fibers and rubbers. Bismuth is sometimes used in the production of shot and shotguns.
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