Antimony Antimony Antimony is a chemical element with symbol Sb (from ) and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (SbS). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were powdered for use as medicine and cosmetics, often known by the Arabic name, kohl. Metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead upon its discovery. The earliest known description of the metal in the West was written in 1540 by Vannoccio Biringuccio. For some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its
Germanium to be eka-antimony, but was soon convinced that it was instead eka-silicon. Before Winkler published his results on the new element, he decided that he would name his element "neptunium", since the recent discovery of planet Neptune in 1846 had similarly been preceded by mathematical predictions of its existence. However, the name "neptunium" had already been given to another proposed chemical element (though not the element that today bears the name neptunium, which was discovered in 1940). So instead, Winkler named the new element "germanium" (from the Latin word, "Germania", for Germany) in honor of his homeland. Argyrodite proved empirically