Delafossite Mineral

Hey dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! Today I would like to present a new mineral something new and hope you can expand your knowledge a little.

Here you can see a specimen of the mineral delafossite which contains copper and iron from the chemical composition and it is known for its electrical conductivity and this property can be used in many ways. Delafossite was first mentioned at the end of the 19th century and it became known at that time to honor the French mineralogist Gabriel Delafosse (1796 - 1878) who made a great contribution to the development of crystallography and is also considered the founder of a well-known French society of geology scholars. It was first discovered at that time probably in Siberia by the French chemist Charles Friedel (1832 - 1889) and is usually found as a secondary mineral in oxidation zones of copper-containing deposits and it has now been documented pretty much everywhere in the world at different locations. Due to the properties, it is of particular interest for the electronic industry and is often part of solar cells or lithium-ion batteries and it is also of interest in the research field and has been found out that it can have photovoltaic effects. It is also of interest for synthetic production and there are numerous approaches for synthesis, which of course makes it even more interesting for economic purposes and the color of the crystals is mostly black and has a metallic shine and the conductivity can vary due to metallic properties.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about minerals! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!