Thorium finds major application _______________?
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Answer: A. For the manufacture of gas mantles
Explanation
Thorium dioxide emits a brilliant white incandescent light when heated strongly in a gas flame. This optical property made thorium the ideal material for manufacturing portable incandescent gas mantles. Historically, lantern mantles were impregnated with thorium salts to enhance illumination brightness significantly. Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element discovered in the early nineteenth century. Thorium dioxide possesses an extremely high melting point exceeding three thousand degrees Celsius. Incandescent gas mantles concentrate heat onto rare earth oxide particles to produce bright visible light.
Gas lighting systems in homes and streets relied on thorium mantles before electric lighting became widespread. Modern industrial uses of thorium include high-temperature ceramics, welding electrodes, and potential nuclear fuels. Handling thorium compounds requires appropriate radiological safety precautions despite its relatively low specific activity. Fissile reactor fuels typically utilize uranium or plutonium isotopes rather than natural thorium directly. Thermonuclear hydrogen weapons rely on lithium deuteride fusion reactions rather than thorium components. Cancer treatment applications use other radioactive isotopes like cobalt or radium rather than thorium gas mantles.
- Subject
- Engineering
- Category
- Chemical Engineering
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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