Indium has been an unknown element to people since agers, or more precisely, it has been forgotten right from the development of quantum mechanics.
Indium is a very rare metal that is found along with certain ores of Zinc, copper, iron and lead.
Canada is the highest producer of Indium. It produces around 75 tons of Indium every year. Indium has derived its name from the indigo blue colour in the spectroscope.
was discovered by Ferdinand Reich and Hieronymous Theodor Richter in 1863 while they were testing zinc ores with a spectrograph in search of Thallium. It is interesting to note that most elements were discovered while searching for other elements. Richter went on to isolate the metal in 1867.

Availability of Indium:

Universe: 0.0003 ppm (by weight)
 Sun: 0.004 ppm (by weight)
 Carbonaceous meteorite: 0.45 ppm
 Earth's Crust: 0.049 ppm
 Seawater: 1 x 10-7 ppm

The Earth is estimated to contain about 0.1 ppm of indium which means it is about as abundant as silver, although indium is in fact nearly three times more expensive by weight.
One unusual property of indium is that its most common isotope is slightly radioactive; it very slowly decays by beta emission to tin. This radioactivity is not considered hazardous, mainly because its half-life is 4.41 x 1014 years, four orders of magnitude larger than the age of the universe and nearly 50,000 times longer than that of natural thorium.
As a pure metal indium emits a high-pitched "cry" when it is bent

Pure indium in metal form is considered non-toxic. However, all indium compounds should be regarded as highly toxic. Indium compounds damage the heart, kidney, and liver, and may be teratogenic(*). Indium trichloride (anhydrous) (InCl3) is quite toxic, while indium phosphide (InP) is both toxic and a suspected carcinogen.

(*)Liable to cause teratogenesis.
The term teratogenesis refers to the production of congenital malformations such as cleft lip and/or palate, anencephaly, or ventricular septal defect, which are medically serious abnormalities present at birth.


The first large-scale application for indium was as a coating for bearings in high-performance aircraft engines during World War II. Afterwards, production gradually increased as new uses were found in fusible alloys, solders, and electronics. In the 1950s, tiny beads of it were used for the emitters and collectors of alloy junction transistors. In the middle and late 1980s, the development of indium phosphide semiconductors and indium tin oxide thin films for liquid crystal displays (LCD) aroused much interest. By 1992, the thin-film application had become the largest end use.
Used to coat high speed bearings, in solar cells, mirrors, regulators in nuclear power, photo cells, the production of LCDs (this accounts for the majority of world-wide usage), transistors and blood and lung research. Used in the manufacture of low-melting-temperature alloys. An alloy consisting of 24% indium and 76% gallium is liquid at room temperature.
Indium can be plated onto metals and evaporated onto glass which forms a mirror which is as good as those made with silver but has higher corrosion resistance.

CAS-ID: 7440-74-6
An: 49 N: 66
Am: 114.818 (3) g/mol
Group No: 13
Group Name: Metals
Block: p-block  Period: 5
State: solid at 298 K
Colour: Silvery lustrous grey Classification: Metallic
Boiling Point: 2345K (2072°C)
Melting Point: 429.75K (156.6°C)
Superconducting temperature: 3.41K (-269.74°C)
Density: 7.31g/cm3
Availability: Indium is available in several forms including bar, foil, pieces, powder, nanosized activated powder, rod, shot, sheet, and wire.

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BY   P.S.SRIHARSHA.

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But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. 


There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for.