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Indium is a very soft metal. I haven’t got
a sample here. It

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melts at 150 degrees or so.

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This is an example of indium it is a really,
really quite nice

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chemical element this one. We can use it for
lots and lots of

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selective types of catalysis, but generally
when it is forming a

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complex with other organic ligands. But here
we can see a

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really nice example of indium and this is
99.9% pure.

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But it’s a metal which has suddenly become
very much more

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expensive because its oxide is transparent
to light but will

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conduct electricity. So it is indium oxide
that you find on

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every LCD display. Here is a rather old computer
and here is

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an old fashioned computer, the LCD display
was quite small

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and gradually they have got bigger and bigger
and therefore

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demand for indium oxide is more and more and
probably you

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are watching this video clip through a thin
layer of indium

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oxide.

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This sample although it’s very small, is
5 grams. So it is a

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really, really, dense metal, very, very expensive
and very,

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very valuable as well.

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But indium is also used as solder for soldering
various metals

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together and it is also quite useful if, I
used it in my youth,

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when we were making low temperature apparatus
and we

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wanted to screw two things together and get
a nice seal in

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between them, you could screw them together
with a thin

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sheet of indium, and that almost welded them
together.

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So indium wire; it is very, very malleable
and very, very soft

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and very easy to form into shapes. I am not
going to touch it

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though because it will cause some significant
problems for

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me, because it does cause toxicity if it comes
into contact

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with the skin; so lovely piece of indium wire.