Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO₂) is a colorless and odorless gas vital to life on Earth. This naturally occurring chemical compound is composed of a carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. Carbon dioxide exists in Earth's atmosphere as a trace gas at a concentration of about 0.04 percent (400 ppm) by volume. Natural sources include volcanoes, hot springs and geysers and it is freed from carbonate rocks by dissolution in water and acids. Because carbon dioxide is soluble in water, it occurs naturally in groundwater, rivers and lakes, in ice caps and glaciers and also in seawater. It is present in deposits of petroleum and natural gas.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is the primary source of carbon in life on Earth and its concentration in Earth's pre-industrial atmosphere since late in the Precambrian was regulated by photosynthetic organisms and geological phenomena. As part of the carbon cycle, plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use light energy to photosynthesize carbohydrate from carbon dioxide and water, with oxygen produced as a waste product.

Cobalt

Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. Like nickel, cobalt in the Earth's crust is found only in chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.

Cobalt-based blue pigments (cobalt blue) have been used since ancient times for jewelry and paints, and to impart a distinctive blue tint to glass, but the color was later thought by alchemists to be due to the known metal bismuth. Miners had long used the name kobold ore (German for goblin ore) for some of the blue-pigment producing minerals; they were so named because they were poor in known metals, and gave poisonous arsenic-containing fumes upon smelting. In 1735, such ores were found to be reducible to a new metal (the first discovered since ancient times), and this was ultimately named for the kobold.

Today, some cobalt is produced specifically from various metallic-lustered ores, for example cobaltite (CoAsS), but the main source of the element is as a by-product of copper and nickel mining. The copper belt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Zambia yields most of the cobalt mined worldwide.

Stahlmann

Stahlmann is a German band that formed in 2008 in Göttingen, Germany. It is in the genre of Neue Deutsche Härte.

History

Martin Soer, the vocalist of the band, met Alexander Scharfe, the guitarist, and both soon realized that they like the same kind of music, Neue Deutsche Härte. Later that year, they started the band, Stahlmann, and started writing their own songs.

They soon met Tobias Berkefeld, who also owned a guitar. After having the members in the band, they decide to do a live performance. For concerts, they invite a third guitarist and drummer.

At this time, the group had no name. The idea arose while eating at a barbecue. "Actually, we were sitting in front of Alex and barbecuing and I was just thinking, 'OK, the name should somehow represent us,' and then it came by itself." says lead singer, Martin.

Thus the concept for their band was formed. Before concerts, all three members would paint themselves silver paint, wear black suits, and use heavy lighting.

In 2009, their debut EP, Herzschlag, got to the top twenty in German alternative charts and settled there for four weeks. Thanks to this, another group noticed them and invited them to tour with bands such as Doro, In Extremo, and Saltatio Mortis. They also worked in Göttingen in concerts, opening for Eisbrecher, and that is where they found their audience.