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All About Moly
Molybdenum is used, principally, as an alloying agent in steel, cast iron, and super alloys to enhance hardening ability, strength, toughness, wear, and corrosion resistance. Molybdenum plays a significant role in contemporary industrial technology which increasingly requires materials that are serviceable under high stress, expanded temperature ranges, and highly corrosive environments. Moreover, molybdenum finds significant usage as a refractory metal in numerous chemical applications including catalysts, lubricants, and pigments. Molybdenum is rapidly becoming a critical metal in the development of green technology and alternative energy.
Uses include:
steel for wind turbine blades- stronger pipelines for oil and gas
- stronger shipping containers
- critical components for water desalination plants
- catalysts to clean diesel
- catalysts to produce clean hydrogen energy
- natural fertilizer
- stronger steel for nuclear reactor walls
MOLYBDENUM
Educational Materials
Molybdenum: Helping to build a stronger future.
Exploring Opportunities: Careers in the Minerals Industry
Fun Stuff
Molybdenum
Elemental Symbol Mo
Molybdenum is a Group 6 chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42. Molybdenum minerals have been known into prehistory, but the element was discovered (in the sense of differentiating it as a new entity from the mineral salts of other metals) in 1778 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
Alloys & Superalloys
Molybdenum does not occur naturally as a free metal on Earth, but rather in various oxidation states in minerals. The free element, which is a silvery metal with a gray cast, has the sixth-highest melting point of any element. It readily forms hard, stable carbides in alloys, and for this reason most of world production of the element (about 80%) is in making many types of steel alloys, including high strength alloys and superalloys.
Compounds
Most molybdenum compounds have low solubility in water, but the molybdate ion MoO42− is soluble and forms when molybdenum-containing minerals are in contact with oxygen and water. Industrially, molybdenum compounds (about 14% of world production of the element) are used in high-pressure and high-temperature applications, as pigments and catalysts.
Enzymes
At least 50 molybdenum-containing enzymes are known in bacteria and animals, although only bacterial and cyanobacterial enzymes are involved in nitrogen fixation, and these nitrogenases contain molybdenum in a different form from the rest. Molybdenum is a required element for life in all higher organisms (eukaryotes), though not in all bacteria.
