Elementary, my dear Watson! The making of a collection of the natural elements

Abstract

A unique collection of samples of the chemical elements has been created and displayed at our Institute of Chemistry. Although whole collections are now commercially available, we decided to use, as much as possible, samples from local resources. The general idea was for each item to have a story, making it more interesting for the students and visitors. We were able to acquire elemental samples mined in Macedonia. Other samples were from our student and research labs, as well as donations from colleagues, and the rest were obtained from commercial sources. A web page was created with all the information on each sample, some of them containing videos. Next to the noble gases, mini Tesla coils were mounted to light up the gases.