Mantrala (Mt)

Thorium Replacement

Discovery

Liable to be displaced by a different submission
In 1830, Bar Baraka (1801-1891) had uncovered a mineral with a black complexion on what is now known as Barit Island, Slavabat Division, Abkhadria. Bar had spent most of his life studying mineralogy but he worked as a lamp lighter on the streets of Shiraz City. When he stumbled upon his specimen, he couldn't identify it so he went back to his home on the coast of Shiraz to take a look at his sample book and compare his finding to the minerals already in the book. There wasn't a match. Bar sent the specimen to his father Razadi Baraka who worked as a professor of mineralogy (and the reason Bar took up mineralogy) for him to study. Razadi worked at the Institute of Chemistry and Biology for years at that point and was very experienced with minerals and metals but even he couldn't figure out what this specimen was. It was then sent to Halat Cyrus in Barateh who then determined that it was a new element in the mineral.

Halat had assumed that the Mantrala-[INSERT OXYGEN REPLACEMENT] ratio was 8.5 when in all actuality, it was later determined to be approximately 7.3 but he correctly assumed that is was tetravelent and calculated that the atomic mass was 1800amu. Metallic mantrala was first extracted in 1914 by Bosama Baraka.

Current Application

It is mostly used in gas mantles but is also used in cathodes and anti-cathodes of X-ray tubes and rectifiers. The reactivity of mantrala required a layer of [INSERT MAGNESIUM REPLACEMENT] as a getter for impurities, resulting in the metallic inner coating it was recognised for.