Taylor triumphs in Germany

Taylor triumphs in Germany

'Power' averages almost 107 to overcome Chisnall in final

Phil Taylor defeated Dave Chisnall 6-2 to win his first European Tour event at the German Darts Championship, hitting seven 180s in the final at the Tempodrom in Berlin. 

The world number one followed up impressive victories over Colin Lloyd, Raymond van Barneveld and Wes Newton by gaining revenge over Chisnall for his defeat in the Ladbrokes World Darts Championship.

Taylor had also been defeated by the St Helens man in a Players Championship final in Reading earlier this year, but never looked like suffering a third loss with a vintage display in the final.

Taylor opened the decider with a 180 in a 12-darter, and after Chisnall levelled in 14 darts he posted an 11-darter and tops to lead 3-1.

Chisnall won the fifth leg on double ten, despite a maximum from Taylor, before the Stoke great hit the same bed to win his fourth leg, finished a 14-darter to lead 5-2 and landed his seventh maximum in the next as he set up tops for victory.

"I'm delighted to have won this," said Taylor, who ended the game with a 106.82 average to Chisnall's 100.60.

"Dave's played some great darts throughout the weekend so I knew I'd have to be at my best in the final and it's great to win. It's a fantastic way to set myself up for the World Matchplay."

Phil Taylor celebrates (pic: Carsten Arlt, PDC Europe, from skysports.com)

Van Gerwen on the mark

Van Gerwen on the mark

Dutchman claims Players Championship title on Sunday

Michaelvan Gerwen won his second ranking title of 2012 with a 6-1 defeat of Simon Whitlock in Sunday's Players Championship in Birmingham. 

The young Dutchman followed up February's triumph in a Speedy Services UK Open Qualifier in Crawley by taking the £6,000 first prize at the NIA Community Hall.

Having been pushed all the way to an 11th leg in his first round game with John Bowles, van Gerwen then saw off Welsh youngster Jamie Lewis and Mark Walsh before enjoying a 6-3 win over double world champion Dennis Priestley to reach the quarter-finals.

Van Gerwen then powered past in-form Justin Pipe 6-1 with a near-109 average and defeated last weekend's UK Open champion Robert Thornton 6-2 with another fine display in the semis.

He continued the form in the final against Whitlock, winning the first five legs without reply to leave the Australian reeling, including a 78 finish and an 11-darter to break throw twice, along with a 96 finish for a 14-darter which featured his second 180 of the game.

Whitlock landed his second maximum in leg six before taking out 73 to keep the game alive, but a missed bullseye in the next leg allowed van Gerwen to step in and seal the triumph on double 16.

"It feels great," said van Gerwen, the world number 35. "It's the third ProTour event I've won since I joined the PDC and I played some good darts today.

"I'm very happy to have won and it should help me qualify for the World Grand Prix as well as the World Matchplay, which is great.

 Sunday finalists Michael van Gerwen and Simon Whitlock (skysports.com)

Tungsten and oxygen(10)

Tungsten and oxygen

Because of its bright yellow color it is used as a pigment in oil and water colors. It is employed in a wide variety of catalysts, most recently in catalysts for the control of air pollution and industrial hygiene.

WO3 is also used as an addition to VO2 in "smart windows." Thermochromism is the ability of a material to be transparent for infrared rays below a certain transition temperature and to reflect above, due to a crystallographic phase transition. The process is strictly reversible and there is almost no influence on visible light. VO2 has a transition temperature at 68℃, which can be lowered by doping with WO3. Glass coated with a thin film of the above mixed oxide is called a "smart window" and is a promising candidate for use in automobiles and buildings for heat protection. 

polished tungsten ring

Tungsten and oxygen(9)

Tungsten and oxygen

WO3 is insoluble in acids with the exception of HF, but dissolves easily in aqueous alkali hydroxide solutions or melts of alkali hydroxides or carbonates. See Chapter 3 for information about reactions of WO3 with hydrogen, water, and carbon.

WO3 is one of the most important, highly pure intermediates for the production of other tungsten compounds and tungsten metal powder. In the latter application it was substituted to a large extent by tungsten blue oxide.

black tungsten chain

Tungsten and oxygen(8)

Tungsten and oxygen

While still maintaining that every octahedron shares every corner with another, other arrays than the chess-board-like arrangement are also possible. Low-temperature dehydration of WO3·1/3H2O yields a metastable oxide (hexagonal WO3, or h-WO3), with a structure as shown in following figure.

Figure the hexagonal framework of octahedra in h-WO3.

Hexagonal WO3 transforms to monoclinic WO3 above 400℃. Another metastable modification is the pyrochlore WO3, modification is the pyrochlore WO3, or p-WO3. It can be prepared from ammonium tungstate by removal of NH4 ions via acid washing. The flexibility of the WO6 corner-linked octahedral framework allows a cubic pyrochlore structure, too (the pyrochlore structure will be presented under tungsten bronzes). The material is white and transforms to monoclinic WO3 above 400℃.

Gold plated tungsten ring

Tungsten and oxygen(7)

Tungsten and oxygen

Commercially available WO3 consists almost entirely of γ-WO3.

The reason for the numerous modifications originates in the structure, which is a three-dimensional array of corner-sharing metal-oxygen octahedra (Fig. 1.1).

The idealized structure (cubic symmetry; ReO3-type) is drawn in Fig. 1.2, showing the octahedra as squares in projection. The real structure is distorted. This means that the relatively small tungsten atoms tend to be displaced from the octahedral center and these displacements are temperature-dependent. Moreover, the symmetry can be influenced by small amounts of impurities.

FIGURE 1.1. WO6 octahedron; (a) Locations of the centers of the atoms; the black circle is tungsten, the white circles oxygen. (b) Atoms shown in full size; the tungsten atom is the small circle.

FIGURE 1.2. The idealized WO3 structure represented as an infinite array of corner-shared octahedra; in the real structure small distortions of the octahedra reduce the symmetry from cubic to monoclinic at room temperature.

two of the hardest materials made of the tungsten diamond ring

Tungsten and oxygen(6)

Tungsten and oxygen

CR: Several allotropic modifications exist:

Beautiful tungsten wedding bands