FROM THE FIRES OF HELL

Sulfur: A Natural History

- BY STEVE VOYNICK

If elements were rated by their popular image, sulfur wouldn't have a chance. Just the mention of the word conjures unsettling thoughts of noxious volcanic gases, acrid smoke, odors of decaying organic matter and even the fundamentalist Christian “fire-and-brimstone” concept of Hell.

But, image problems aside, sulfur has a lot going for it. Widely collected for its beautiful, bright-yellow crystals, sulfur has been a staple in medicine for 4,000 years and, under its old name “brimstone,” appears frequently in both the Bible and alchemical texts. Today, sulfur is a major industrial commodity with myriad uses. And, in a contradiction of a fundamental tenet of mineral-resource supply and demand, sulfur use has reached record highs, yet sulfur mining has virtually ceased.

FUMIGANTS AND GUNPOWDER

The Chinese were using sulfur medicinally by 2000 B.C., applying sulfur-based ointments to alleviate skin ailments and burning sulfur to generate sulfur dioxide gas that cleared nasal passages and fumigated insect-infested materials and dwellings.

The Chinese initially obtained limited amounts of sulfur from volcanic fumaroles. By the time these sources were depleted around 300 B.C., they had learned to heat pyrite (iron disulfide) in kilns and condense the resulting “golden vapors” into elemental sulfur. By the first century C.E., other Asian and European cultures were also heating pyrite to obtain sulfur.