Information and facts about iodine, what is iodine?

 Information and facts about iodine, which is one of the basic and essential elements for life. It is known for its vital role in the production of thyroid hormone in humans as well as in all other vertebrates. Iodine deficiency may lead to serious health problems, including goiter or an enlarged thyroid gland, and disability. Psychosis, and congenital iodine deficiency syndrome, or cretinism. Learn what iodine is and why it is important.

What is iodine

And iodine - as a pure element - is not a metal with a bright black-purple color of a solid nature under standard conditions, and it is one of the elements that sublimates (that is, turns from a solid state to a gaseous state without passing through a liquid state) easily to give purple smoke, and although it is not a metal, However, it does show some mineral properties.

Iodine is classified within the halogens, which is a subset of the highly chemically reactive elements (group 17 in the periodic table), and are present in the environment as compounds instead of pure elements.Other halogens include fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), and astatin ( At), and the term “halogen” means “salt generator”. When these elements interact with minerals, they produce a wide range of salts, such as: calcium fluoride, sodium chloride (common table salt), silver bromide, and potassium iodide.

Iodine is considered the least reactive among the halogens, as well as the most electronegative, which means that it tends to lose electrons and form positive ions during chemical reactions, and it is also the heaviest and least abundant of the stable halogens, and although there are 37 known isotopes of iodine, there is only one of them. It exists naturally and is (I-127).

 

Iodine has many commercial uses, and it can be found in a variety of pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, inks, dyes, stimulants, photographic chemicals, and animal food supplements. Iodine also plays a prominent role in medicine in particular. For example, iodine compounds are commonly used. It is commonly used in sterilization and wound disinfection solutions, and as internal contrast agents in imaging techniques, such as: computed tomography (CT), radiography and fluoroscopy, and the radioisotope (I-137) is also used to treat thyroid cancer.

Iodine as a trace element

According to the World Iodine Association - WIA , about 99.6% of the Earth's mass is a mixture of 32 chemical elements, and the remaining 0.4% is distributed among 64 elements - all in trace amounts, and iodine is element 61 in terms of abundance, making it one of The least abundant non-metallic element on Earth, as well as one of the rarest elements needed for life.

Although iodine is not a plentiful element, it can be found in trace amounts almost everywhere. In water, soil, rocks, plants, animals and humans, seawater is the largest reserve of iodine because it contains about 34.5 million tons, but at very low concentrations - averaging between 50 to 60 parts per billion (PPB), and this makes direct extraction not possible, and rivers contain Less iodine, around 5 parts per billion (PPB), according to Lenntech Water Treatment Solutions in Denmark.

Most of the iodine used in industries is extracted from the brine solutions (highly saturated salt water) associated with gas wells in Japan, and from the caliche mineral deposits in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, and in the United States, iodine is extracted from deep salt wells In Northern Oklahoma.

Facts about iodine

Atomic number (number of protons in the nucleus): 53

Atomic symbol (on the periodic table of the elements): I.

Atomic weight (average mass of the atom): 126.90447.

Density: 4.93 grams per cubic centimeter.

Case at room temperature: Solid.

Melting point: 236.7 degrees Fahrenheit (113.7 degrees Celsius)

Boiling point: 363.9 F (184.4C)

Number of isotopes (having the same atomic number of the element with a different number of neutrons): 37 is known, of which only one is stable (I-127).

Historical information about iodine

French chemist Bernard Courtois accidentally discovered iodine in 1811 during the Napoleonic Wars, when Courtois was helping his father manufacture rock salt - an important ingredient in the much-needed gunpowder at the time - and to manufacture it he used wood ash as a source of potassium nitrate needed to make salt. Rocky, but due to the lack of wood ash, he started using seaweed instead, and to isolate sodium and potassium extracts from the seaweed, Courtois would burn the seaweed and wash the ash with water, then add sulfuric acid to eliminate the waste residue. Of purple gas after adding a little more than usual amount of sulfuric acid, and then discovering later that the smoke formed would condense into dark purple crystals on cold surfaces.

At that time, Courtois was not aware that he had discovered iodine, but he doubted that it might be a new element, so he gave some samples to other scientists to continue the research which finally confirmed that it was a truly new element. Later, French chemist Joseph Louis gave Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac »The New Element The name“ iode ”from the Greek word“ ioeidēs, ”meaning purple.

 

Courtois was still recognized as the first person to isolate iodine, although he was not the one who called it, but in 1831 Courtois received the Montyon Prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences for his work, but unfortunately, he did not gain any financial benefit from his discovery.

Do you know?

Iodized table salt was first sold in Michigan in 1924, and before that most people who lived in coastal areas obtained a lot of iodine because of their proximity to the ocean and coastal soils, unlike people who lived in the interior, who were often deficient. Today, which leads to a high incidence of goitre - an enlarged thyroid gland - and once the relationship between iodine deficiency and goiter is established, public health officials began looking for ways to alleviate the problem, and this is what ultimately led to the creation of iodized salt.

Iodine is a good reagent for starch because it turns a dark blue color when mixed with it.

Photography was the first commercial use of iodine, when Louis Daguerre invented the Daguerreotypes method in 1839, in which images appear on thin sheets of metal.

Goitre can also occur in animals due to iodine deficiency, and it is not uncommon to see this in dogs, livestock, goats, birds and fish.

Iodine is a component of "Nuclear Fallout", which is the remaining radioactive material that falls from the sky when a nuclear explosion occurs. People in a radioactive zone may be at risk of inhaling or digesting iodine, which is highly toxic when exposed to it in large quantities.

The relationship of iodine to thyroid health

The body needs iodine for the synthesis of thyroid hormones; Thyroxine (T4), and tri-iodine thyronine (T3), where each of T4 and T3 contains four and three atoms of iodine per molecule respectively, and these hormones are essential for human health because they control energy production and use throughout the body, as iodine deficiency leads to a decrease In the production of these hormones, and may lead to goiter and / or mild to severe intellectual disability, and in very severe cases of iodine deficiency in pregnant women, a child may be born with congenital hypothyroidism (or aneurysm which is now considered a derogatory term) In this case, the child suffers from severe delays in physical and mental development.

Iodine deficiency generally affects about two billion people around the world, and according to the Australian Synapse organization concerned with brain injuries, it is the most important preventable cause of mental disability in developing regions, and according to Synapse, India has the highest prevalence of iodine-related health causes. With 500 million people suffering from deficiency, 54 million suffering from goiter, and two million suffering from complete hypothyroidism.

The recommended daily intake of iodine is estimated at 150 micrograms for adults, and about twice this amount for pregnant and breastfeeding women, marine vegetables and animals, specifically seaweed (wakame and kelp), scallops, prawns, and cod contain the highest concentrations of iodine. Wild food sources, such as plants grown in iodine-rich soil, or from dairy products and eggs if the cows and chickens feed contains an adequate amount of iodine.

And because the daily need for iodine is minimal, eating too much of it can cause health problems as well, and according to the World's Healthiest Food (WHF), people who consume a lot of iodine-rich foods on a daily basis - especially kelp and wakame - should make sure of Their total daily intake does not exceed the maximum permissible limit (UL), set by the US National Academy of Sciences at 1,100 micrograms per day (for adults 19 years and over).