# What the hell is "Potash?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 26, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436 "2025-01-26T16:25:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/121 "2025-01-30T16:10:28Z")
> [@DesertDog](#):
>
> Plus they don’t know _who_ buried the nut, himself or Larry in the next tree over.
And if great-to-the-nth-power grandma hadn’t forgotten her nut those many years ago, Larry wouldn’t have a tree to live in.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/122 "2025-01-30T20:35:07Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> If you want to mess with magnesium, you can probably buy magnesium ribbon from a chemical supply house.
Pretty easily. I’ve got some (pretty nice) photos taken without a flash at night around a ‘campfire’ that was actually burning strips of magnesium. I don’t recall it was especially difficult to get it burning, either.
Even without the fire risk, be careful. You can easily damage your eyes.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/123 "2025-01-30T22:39:46Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Yikes! Do you store them under oil? And how were they even formed into a cylinder? The metal is about as hard as refrigerated butter.
They’re in the original packaging from when I ordered them as element samples. I think they’re bagged in nitrogen and then closed in a plastic jar with screw lid, but I’m not 100% sure. It’s been a few years.
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Part of me wants a beryllium cylinder, but despite being lower on the periodic table than magnesium, it’s a higher density. Also, it’s freaking beryllium.
I have a dime sized rounded blob of freaking beryllium. I’m a little cautious about it, but the only thing I’m really careful about is not creating dust from it. The big problem with beryllium is breathing its aerosol, from foundry fumes or finishing operations.
By the way, beryllium copper tools are fairly common and don’t carry warnings. They’re a few percent beryllium, and it’s just mixed with the copper, it’s not some new compound. And yes of course I have a sample of that, a 1/4" rod about a foot long…
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/124 "2025-01-30T23:41:05Z")
Beryllium copper I’m not too worried about. No dust hazard or anything. But as a pure sample in an element collection, something that people can pick up and handle, I’m more concerned. It’s brittle and if it falls it could conceivably fracture and create fine dust. At least for the large samples I want.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/125 "2025-01-30T23:45:21Z")
I wonder where I can acquire a beryllium sphere, roughly three foot diameter?
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/126 "2025-01-31T00:38:08Z")
Rock! Rock! Rock!
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/127 "2025-01-31T00:43:50Z")
A couple of beryllium hemispheres and a screwdriver will do it for me.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/128 "2025-01-31T01:46:58Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Part of me wants a beryllium cylinder, but despite being lower on the periodic table than magnesium, it’s a higher density. Also, it’s freaking beryllium.
Nah, all the Cool Kids get beryllium spheroids.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2025, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/129 "2025-01-31T02:18:23Z")
My argon laser (long story) has a beryllium laser tube. I was advised to avoid cracking it.
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/130 "2025-02-03T05:21:09Z")
Some very high end tweeters use beryllium domes. The metal’s properties really do seem to make a measurable difference to the performance of the driver, pushing a lot of the vibrational modes out past audibly. Something competing materials have trouble doing. Usually tweeters need to use internal damping in the dome material balanced against stiffness and keeping mass low. Beryllium seems to just sneak past all this.
How much this is actually audible is another matter. Especially if your hearing struggles past 15kHz.
Another place I remember being impressed seeing beryllium used was in some external panels of the Mercury (or maybe Gemini) spacecraft. I’m guessing application in such extreme use cases is more common than we might think.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/131 "2025-02-03T05:24:34Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> I’m guessing application in such extreme use cases is more common than we might think.
The James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror segments are made from beryllium. Stiff, light, and has good cryogenic properties.
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/132 "2025-02-03T08:10:43Z")
Gawd, that one slipped my mind. Yes, a really high profile use. Cryogenic properties must matter a lot here as well.
If it wasn’t such an evil element it might have been quite popular for making stuff.
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### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/133 "2025-02-03T08:21:45Z")
In first-year engineering we were warned about beryllium-bronze springs. The lecturer claimed that if you cut yourself on this material, the wound would not heal, or would heal very slowly, for reasons I can’t remember.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/134 "2025-02-03T12:32:22Z")
> [@hibernicus](#):
>
> if you cut yourself on this material, the wound would not heal
Right. This is berylliosis, a sensitivity disease that usually involves the lungs after inhaling beryllium particles, but can also occur in wounds. I don’t think it always happens if you cut yourself on the stuff, just that it might.
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### Author:  [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/135 "2025-02-03T13:57:12Z")
Something you used to be able to buy in your local friendly electronics parts store was beryllium oxide heat conductive paste. It was - at the time - the good stuff. But it came with all manner of warnings, especially about using gloves and never allowing it into even the tiniest of wounds. I haven’t seen it about in many decades, and it has probably been supplanted by diamond based pastes. The other warning was about handling the ceramic packages of high power transistors and integrated circuits. These were (still are?) often a beryllium ceramic. Basically, don’t mess about with them, and sure as hell don’t try grinding into the packages.
In John D Clarke’s Ignition!, the describes a long series of experiments with high performance rocket fuels based on metals, one metal investigated being beryllium. This being taken seriously despite the well understood toxicity of the exhaust. Given some of the ridiculous things being worked with, perhaps this isn’t as surprising as is might seem. Thankfully the gains didn’t justify the problems. He ends the chapter suggesting that a liquid lithium, liquid fluorine pair seemed like the good combination. 😱
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/136 "2025-02-03T16:44:59Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> Some very high end tweeters use beryllium domes.
Copper beryllium alloy is not super uncommon. For example, I think it’s also used for more conventional speaker drivers for the little pair of wires that move with the speaker cone.
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### Author:  [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/137 "2025-02-03T21:37:09Z")
If that’s the same as “beryllium bronze” I think it’s used in springs, in particular small springs such as might be used in watchmaking.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2025, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/138 "2025-02-06T01:33:56Z")
> [@beowulff](#):
>
> Rock! Rock! Rock!
Oh, darn.
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### Author:  [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2025, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/139 "2025-02-06T09:08:32Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror segments are made from beryllium. Stiff, light, and has good cryogenic properties.
What does that last part mean in the context of mirrors and lenses?
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2025, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/140 "2025-02-06T12:31:41Z")
When it heats up and cools off, it doesn’t warp the reflecting surface too much. (Or it warps in predictable ways that you can compensate for.)
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