Post-transition metal traditionally used for tools.' In modern use, the term 'semimetal' sometimes refers, loosely or explicitly, to metals with incomplete metallic character in crystalline structure, electrical conductivity or electronic structure. Examples include gallium, ytterbium, bismuth, mercury and neptunium. Metalloids, which are in-between elements that are neither metals nor nonmetals, are also sometimes instead called semimetals. The elements commonly recognised as metalloids are boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium. In old chemistry, before the publication in 1789 of Lavoisier's 'revolutionary' "Elementary Treatise on Chemistry", a semimetal was a metallic element with 'very imperfect ductility and malleability' such as zinc, mercury or
Metalloid initiator compositions (for igniting other hard-to-start compositions), and in delay compositions that burn at a constant rate. Boron carbide has been identified as a possible replacement for more toxic barium or hexachloroethane mixtures in smoke munitions, signal flares, and fireworks. Silicon, like boron, is a component of initiator and delay mixtures. Doped germanium can act as a variable speed thermite fuel. Arsenic trisulfide AsS was used in old naval signal lights; in fireworks to make white stars; in yellow smoke screen mixtures; and in initiator compositions. Antimony trisulfide SbS is found in white-light fireworks and in flash and sound mixtures.