What is arsenic used for?

Answer 1

Arsenic can be used as a weed killer-it is often sprayed from airplanes over cotton fields to destroy boll-weevil infestations.Also is used as a wood preservative, giving a characteristic green tint. It can be used as a poison and produce useful medical products.

Answer 2

Wood preservation

The toxicity of arsenic to insects, bacteria and fungi makes it an ideal component for the preservation of wood. Although now discontinued, this application is also one of the most concern to the general public. Studies showed that arsenic could leach out of the wood into the surrounding soil (from playground equipment, for instance), a risk is also presented by the burning of older timber.

Medical

During the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, a number of arsenic compounds have been used as medicines, including arsphenamine (by Paul Ehrlich) and arsenic trioxide (by Thomas Fowler). Arsphenamine as well as Neosalvarsan was indicated for syphilis and trypanosomiasis, but has been superseded by modern antibiotics. Arsenic trioxide has been used in a variety of ways over the past 500 years, but most commonly in the treatment of cancer. The US Food and Drug Administration in 2000 approved this compound for the treatment of patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia that is resistant to ATRA.

Recently new research has been done in locating tumours using arsenic-74 (a positron emitter). The advantages of using this isotope instead of the previously used iodine-124 is that the signal in the PET scan is clearer as the iodine tends to transport iodine to the thyroid gland producing a lot of noise.

Pigments

Copper acetoarsenite was used as a green pigment known under many different names, including 'Paris Green' and 'Emerald Green'. It caused numerous arsenic poisonings. Scheele's Green, a copper arsenate, was used in the 19th century as a coloring agent in sweets.

Military

After World War I the United States built up a stockpile of 20,000 tons of Lewisite; a chemical weapon composed with arsenic, acting as a vesicant (blister agent) and lung irritant. The stockpile was neutralized with bleach and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico after the 1950s. During the Vietnam War the United States used Agent Blue (a mixture of sodium cacodylate) and dimethyl arsinic acid (cacodylic acid) as one of the rainbow herbicides to deprive the Vietnamese of valuable crops.

Insecticides and bactericides

Various agricultural insecticides, termination and poisons. For example Lead hydrogen arsenate was used well into the 20th century as an insecticide on fruit trees. However, in the last half century, monosodium methyl arsenate (MSMA) and disodium methyl arsenate (DSMA), a less toxic organic form of arsenic, has replaced lead arsenate's role in agriculture. It is also used in animal feed, particularly in the US as a method of disease prevention and growth stimulation.

Trace components of various other products

Gallium arsenide is an important semiconductor material, used in integrated circuits. Circuits made using the compound are much faster (but also much more expensive) than those made in silicon. Unlike silicon it is direct bandgap, and so can be used in laser diodes and LEDs to directly convert electricity into light. Also up to 2% of arsenic is used in lead alloys for lead shots and bullets. Arsenic also is added in small quantities to brass to make it dezincification resistant. This grade of brass is used to make Plumbing fittings.

Answer 3

Arsenic applications:

- oxides are used as poison

- gallium arsenide is used in lasers in other electronic components

- hardening element in alloys of copper and lead

- component of pesticides

- medical uses (now in decline)

- war gases

- in stomatology to kill nerves

- anti-dezincification additive in brass

- preservation of biological samples

Answer 4

It has many applications.

See the link bellow.

Answer 5

There are a variety of uses for arsenic. Some of these include rat poison, ammunition manufacturing, as well as a preservative in taxidermy.

Answer 6

car batteries also its in rat poison and is a covering for many alloy products.

arsenic can be pound it wood that has been treated!

Answer 7

Can somebody answer please:-)

Answer 8

we use arsenic in poisons