TOP 10 MOST EXPENSIVE SUBSTANCE

TOP 10 MOST 

EXPENSIVE SUBSTANCE

10.HEROIN

Price:-$130 per gram

Discovery :- In 1874, an English researcher, C.R. wright, first synthesized heroine by boiling morphine and acetic anhydride. His early testing of heroin – then known as diacetylmorphine-showed undesirable side effects such as anxiety, sleepiness and vomiting immediately following administration. Accordingly, he discontinued his research.

Appearance :- Heroin comes as a white, beige, or brown powder. It is usually injected intravenously, after being diluted and heated. Heroine can also be snorted or smoked. An average dose of heroin weighs about 20 mg.

Occurrence :- Heroin is manufactured from opium poppies cultivated in four primary source area: South America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, and Mexico. Although Afghanistan produces the majority of the world’s heroin, South American heroin has become the most prevalent type available in the U.S., particularly in the Northeast, South and Midwest. The particular form known as “black tar” from Mexico, a less pure form of heroin, is more commonly found in the western and southwestern United States. This heroin may be sticky like roofing tar or hard like coal, with its colour varying from dark brown to black.

Application :- Recreational, Medical uses, Maintenance therapy.

9.COCAINE

Price:-$236 per gram

Discovery :- For over a thousand years south American indigenous peoples have chewed the leaves of Erythroxylon coca, a plant that contains vital nutrients as well as numerous alkaloids, including cocaine. The coca leaf was, and still is, chewed almost universally by some indigenous communities. The remains of coca leaves have been found with ancient Peruvian mummies, and pottery from the time period depicts humans with bulged cheeks, indicating the presence of something on which they are chewing. There is also evidence that these cultures used a mixture of coca leaves and saliva as an anesthetic for the performance of trepanation.

Colour/Appearance :- White

Occurrence :- In 2005, researchers proposed the use of cocaine in conjugation with phenylephrine administered in the form of an eye drop as a diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease.

Application :- Medical, recreational, Oral, Insulation, Inhalation, Suppository.

8.LSD

Price:-$3,000 per gram

Discovery :- LSD was first synthesized on November 16, 1938 by Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland as part of a large research program searching for medically useful ergot alkaloid derivatives. LSD’s psychedelic properties were discovered 5 years later when Hofmann himself accidentally ingested an unknown quantity of the chemical. The first intentional ingestion of LSD occurred on April 19, 1943, when Hofmann ingested 250 ug of LSD. He said this would be a threshold dose based on the dosages of other ergot alkaloids. Hofmann found the effects to be much stronger than he anticipated. Sandoz Laboratories introduced LSD as a psychiatric drug in 1947.

Appearance :- LSD is a psychoactive, psychedelic drug most commonly called Acid. It can be considered a “club drug” and is also known as blotter, doses, tabs, dots, and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.

Occurrence :- A number of organisation-including the Beckley Foundation, MAPS, Heffter Research Institute and the Albert Hofmann Foundation – exist to fund, encourage and coordinate research into the medicinal and spiritual uses of LSD and related psychedelics. New clinical LSD experiments in humans started in 2009 for the first time in 35 years. As it is illegal in many areas of the world, potential medical uses are difficult to study. In 2001 the United States Drug Enforcement Administration stated that LSD “produces no aphrodisiac effects, does not increase creativity, has no lasting positive effect in treating alcoholics or criminals, does not produce a ‘model psychosis’, and does not generate immediate personality change”. More recently, experimental uses of LSD have include the treatment of alcoholism & pain & cluster headache relief.

Application :- Medical, Recreational, Spiritual.

7.PLUTONIUM

Price:-$4,000 per gram

Naming :- After dwarf planet pluto, itself named after classical god of the underworld Pluto.

Discovery :- Glenn. T. seaborg , Arthur Wahi, Joseph W. Kennedly, Edwin McMillan.

(1940-1)

Appearance :- Silver white, tarnishing to dark gray in air.

Occurrence :- Plutonium is the element with the highest atomic no. to occur in nature.. Plutonium is much more common on Earth since 1945 as a product of neutron capture and beta decay, where some of the neutrons released by the fission process convert uranium- 238 nuclei into plutonium-239.

Application :- The isotope most commonly used for this application is plutonium-238 because the radiation it gives off does not pose a threat to people’s health. Plutonium is also used as a fuel in nuclear power plants and in making nuclear weapons (“atomic bombs”). The isotope used for this purpose is plutonium-239.

*Plutonium-238 is used to make electricity for space probes using radio isotope thermoelectric generators. When concentrated enough, plutonium-239 undergoes a fission chain reaction. Because of this, it is used in nuclear weapons and some nuclear reactors.”

6.PAINITE

Price:-$60,000 per carat

Naming & Discovery:- Painite is very rare barate mineral. It was first found in Myanmar by British mineralogist and when it was gem dealer Arthur Cd. Pain in the 1950s when it was confirmed as a new mineral species, the mineral was named after him.

Colour/Appearance:- Red, Brownish, Orange-Red.

Occurrence:- Extensive exploration in the Magok region has identified several new painite occurrences that have been vigorously explored resulting in several thousand new painite specimens.

Application:- Painite Jewelry and Gemstones.

5.TAAFFEITE

Price:-$2,500 per carat

Discovery:- Taffe bought a no. of precious stones from a jeweller in October 1945. Upon noticing inconsistencies between the taaffeite and spinels, Taaffle sent some example to B. W. Anderson of the Laboratory of the London chamber of commerce for identification on 1 November 1945. When Aderson replied on 5 November 1945, he told Taaffe that they were unsure of whether it was a spinal or something new, he also offered to write it up in Gemologist.

Appearance :- Colorless, Greyish violet, Violet red, Red, Greenish, light green, Pink violet, mauve.

Occurrence :- Taaffeite occurs in carbonate rocks alongside fluorite, mica, spinal & tourmaline. This extremely rare mineral is increasingly found in alluvial deposite in Sri Lanka and Southern Tanzania, as well as lower grade taaffeite in limestone sediments in China.

Application :-Because of its rarity, taaffeite is used only as a Gemstone.

4.TRITIUM

Price:-$30,000 per gram

Discovery :- Tritium was first produced in 1934 from deuterium, another isotope of hydrogen, by Ernest Rutherford, Mark Oliphant, and Paul Harteck. However, their experiment could not isolate tritium, which was later accomplished by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog, who also realized tritum’s radioactivity. Willard F. Libby recognized that tritium could be used for radiometric dating of water and wine.

Appearance :- Tritium is the only radiation source used in radioluminescent light sources today. Various preparations of the phosphor compound can be used t produce different colors of light. Some of the colors that have been manufactured in addition to the common phosphors are green, red, blue, yellow, purple, orange & white.

Occurrence :- use as an oceanic transient tracer – North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans, Mississippi River System.

Application :- self-powered lighting, Nuclear weapons, Neutron initiator, Boosting Tritium in hydrogen bomb secondaries. Controlled nuclear fusion, Analytical chemistry, Electrical power source.

3.DIAMOND

Price:-“First of all, diamonds are all priced per carat. So, lets say a 0.50 carat diamond has a price of $1400 per carat. That diamond’s price for the stone would be $1400*0.50, or $700. Secondly, diamond prices per carat increase as you jump to higher weight categories.”

Naming :- The name diamond is derived from the ancient Greek.

Discovery :- Diamonds are thought to have been first recognized and mined in India, where significant alluvial deposits of the stone could be found many centuries ago along the rivers Penner, Krishna and Godavari. Diamonds have been known in India for at least 3,000 years but most likely 6,000 years.

Appearance :- Typically yellow, brown, or gray to colourless. Less often blue, green, black, translucent white, pink, violet, orange, purple, and red.

Occurrence :- Diamond bearing rock is carried from the mantle to the Earth’s surface by deep-origin volcano must originate at a depth where diamonds can be formed – 150 km (93mi) or more (three times or more the depth of source magma for most volcanoes). This is a relatively rare occurrence.

Application :- Industrial diamonds are mostky used in cutting, grinding, drilling, and polishing procedures. Here, hardness and heat conductivity characteristics are the qualities being purchased. Size and other measure of quality relevant to gemstone are not important.

2.CALIFORNIUM

Price:-$27 million per gram

Naming:- Californium is named for the state of California, as well as the University of California system. 
  

Discovery:- Lawrence Berkeley National  Laboratory (1950). Stanley G. Thompson, Glenn t. Seaborg, Kenneth street and Albert Ghiorso at the University of California, Berkeley, first produced californium in 1950.

Appearance:- Silvery

Occurrence:- Traces of Californium can be found near facilities that use the element in material prospecting and in medical treatments. The element is fairly insoluble in water, but it adheres well to ordinary soil; and concentrations of it in the soil can be 500 times higher than  in the water surrounding the soil particles.

Application:- Californium is a very efficient source of neutrons, which makes it a useful element. Currently, it is used in the oil well industry. Californium can be used in devices called neutron moisture gauges that find oil and water-bearing layers within the wells. Additionally, it used as a neutron source in a process called neutron activation that can find gold and silver ores through on the spot analysis. Many more uses for californium are expected.

1.ANTIMATTER

Price:-Scientist claim that antimatter is the costliest material to make. In 2006, Gerald Smith estimated $250 million could produce 10 milligrams of positrons (equivalent to $25 billion per gram); in 1999, NASA gave a figure of $62.5 trillion per gram of antihydrogen.

Discovery:- The idea of negative matter appears in past theories of matter that have now been abandoned. Using the once popular vortex theory of gravity, the possibility of matter with negative gravity was discussed by William Hicks in the 1880’s. betwwen the 1880s and the 1890s, Karl Pearson proposed the existence of “squirts” and sinks of the flow of aether. The squirts represented normal matter and the sinks represented negative matter. Pearson’s theory required a fourth dimension for the aether to flow from and into.

Appearance :- ALPHA observes light spectrum of antimatter for first time.

Occurrence :- Antimatter particles share the same mass as their matter counterparts, but qualities such as electric charge are opposite researches have observed spontaneous transformations between particles and their antiparticles, occurring millions of times per second before they decay.

Application :- Medical,Fuel,Weapons.