{"id":47947,"date":"2026-05-05T17:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=47947"},"modified":"2026-05-05T17:07:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T11:37:41","slug":"germanium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/germanium\/","title":{"rendered":"Germanium"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Germanium Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, in a major defence-tech breakthrough, Hyderabad based company has developed India\u2019s first germanium-free thermal imaging payload for drones.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Germanium<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has the <\/span><b>chemical symbol Ge<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><b>atomic number 32.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>silvery-gray metalloid,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> intermediate in properties between the metals and the nonmetals.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Properties of Germanium<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has a <\/span><b>diamond-like crystalline structure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and it is similar in chemical and physical properties to silicon.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>stable in air and water<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and is <\/span><b>unaffected by alkalis and acids<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, except nitric acid.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It remains of primary importance in the manufacture of transistors and of components for devices such as rectifiers and photocells.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is widely distributed in nature but is <\/span><b>too reactive to occur free.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Germanium ores are rare. They are found in small quantities as the <\/span><b>minerals germanite and argyrodite.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is extracted as a <\/span><b>by-product of zinc production<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and from coal fly ash.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is estimated that <\/span><b>75% of worldwide production of germanium<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is sourced <\/span><b>from zinc ores,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mainly the zinc sulfide mineral sphalerite, and 25% from coal.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Applications:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Its main use is to produce <\/span><b>solid-state electronics<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, semiconductors and fiber optic systems.<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Major Producers<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The major worldwide producer of germanium <\/span><b>is China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, responsible for <\/span><b>around 60% of total production.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The remaining production of germanium comes from <\/span><b>Canada, Finland, Russia, and the United States.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businesstoday.in\/india\/story\/big-breakthrough-india-cuts-china-supply-barrier-with-new-germanium-free-drone-imaging-tech-528576-2026-05-02\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">BT<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Germanium is a chemical element in Group 14 (IVa) of the periodic table, positioned between silicon and tin, known for its semiconductor properties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":101897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[513,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-47947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-germanium","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102007,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47947\/revisions\/102007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}