https://eic.rsc.org/elements/bromine/2020004.article


Bromine

By John Emsley1 May 2008


Once so essential, now mired in controversy

The bromine story began with 24-year-old student Antoine-Jérôme Balard (1802-76) who found that the salt residues left by evaporating brine from Montpellier, France, gave an oily red liquid when treated with acid. He realised this was a new element and reported it to the French Academy, who confirmed his discovery. When they realised it was chemically similar to chlorine and iodine, French chemists proposed the name bromine, based on the Greek word bromos meaning stench.

Fifty years ago world production of liquid bromine exceeded some 300,000 tonnes per year, much of which was produced at a plant on the coast of Anglesey, north Wales. This plant closed as recently as 2004. Here bromine was extracted from sea water, which contains 65 ppm bromide, by using chlorine gas to convert the bromide to bromine, which was then removed by blowing air through the water. Bromine was used in the manufacture of myriad useful compounds. Photography relied on the light-sensitivity of silver bromide, doctors prescribed potassium bromide as a tranquilliser, leaded petrol needed dibromo-methane to ensure lead was removed from engines via the exhaust gases, bromomethane was widely used to fumigate soil and storage facilities, and fire extinguishers contained volatile organobromine compounds.

While some of these uses of bromine have declined because the products are no longer needed, others have been discouraged because of the damage this element can cause to the ozone layer. Volatile organobromine compounds are capable of surviving in the atmosphere long enough to reach the upper ozone layer where bromine atoms are 50 times more damaging than chlorine atoms (from chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs).

The Montreal Protocol, which outlawed CFCs, also sought to ban the use of all volatile organobromines by 2010, in particular bromomethane and compounds such as CBrClF2, which were used in fire extinguishers. However, banning bromomethane has so far proved impossible because it has some uses for which alternatives have not been found. Often referred to as methyl bromide, CH3Br (boiling point 3.5°C) has been widely used to kill pests in the soil, which threaten crops such as strawberries, and flowers such as carnations and chrysanthemums.

In fact, bromomethane is not so threatening as it first appears. Recent environmental research found that half the bromomethane sprayed on soil never evaporates into the air because it is consumed by bacteria. Nor are man-made organobromines the main source of these compounds in the atmosphere. Marine plankton and algae release around half a million tonnes of various bromomethanes, for example tribromomethane, into the atmosphere every year.

Even more surprising has been the discovery that something in the oceans makes pentabromodiphenyl ether, the synthetic version of which is also used as a fire retardant. In 2005 this compound was found in whale blubber. At first it was thought to be the man-made variety. However, the carbon atoms it contained had detectable amounts of 14C, suggesting that they were of recent origin. The fire retardant is made entirely from fossil resources and thus contains no 14C. Another complex bromine compound from the sea is the purple dye once used for clothes worn by the Roman Emperors. Tyrian purple - 6,6´-dibromoindigo - was extracted from the Mediterranean mollusc Murex brandaris.

Bromine is, however, a potential threat to human health. Ozonising drinking water to sterilise it converts any bromide to bromate (BrO3-), which is a suspected carcinogen. The limit set for bromide ions in water is 10 ppb. Some reservoirs in California where this limit was exceeded have been drained as a consequence.

Once so beneficial, bromine now appears to cause nothing but trouble and yet in ways unseen, such as in the pharmaceutical industries, it still continues to be used to provide intermediates in the manufacture of life-saving drugs.

Or, good reading habits make you smart. I know tons of people who don't take Iodine but are good readers, and they're really smart. The more you read and learn, the smarter you get , even without taking oodles of iodine. Taking Iodine alone is not what makes a person smart. Otherwise, we'd see people who take Iodine magically transitioning into becoming geniuses. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately, more effort is required on the part of the individual, this is well-known.

The little old car that is your body or brain can chug along only so fast. Maybe iodine turns your 4 cylinder engine into a supercharged V8.

But without good habits, it doesnt matter.

The tortoise and the rabbit parable comes to mind, that slow and steady wins the race. A person who doesn't take extra iodine but is steady in their efforts at whatever goal they have chosen, can blow away a person who takes iodine but doesn't have any goals.

Putting a monkey behind a V8 is not as good as a human with a one-cylinder go-gart, who persistently chugs along.

Iodine does not create geniuses, it only perhaps makes a person more inquisitive and oils up the mind to perform better. But taking iodine doesn't make a person a multiple PhD, or an MD. It only gives capacity perhaps to do more work. The rest is up to the person as to how they drive their improved vehicle.

Those with mis-guided habits or lacking a desire to get off their duffs in the first place, iodine won't necessarily help.

Maybe, it only makes a person better at what they inherently are, and if they were inherently lazy, it only makes them to be better at being lazy !! etc.

Lucky me, I always enjoyed reading.

The new owners of this website totally love you.