In 1802, chemists discovered that it was possible to commercially manufacture an excellent blue pigment using cobalt. For the past 200 years, that’s basically it.
Then, in 2009, researchers at Oregon State University finally found a new form of blue, even more vivid than cobalt.
It’s finally on sale now – for $ 179.40 for a three-ounce tube, yeeikes!
Isis Davis-Marks on Smithsonian has the story:
Named after its chemical components of yttrium, indium and manganese oxides, YInMn absorbs red and green wavelengths while reflecting blue wavelengths to produce a brilliant blue color. The unique hue, which is a hybrid of ultramarine blue and cobalt, fills “a gap in the color gamut,” said art materials maker Georg Kremer Artnet News.
He adds: “The purity of YInMn Blue is really perfect.”
People around the world gravitated towards blue, which was the first man-made pigment for millennia. Given the difficulty of extracting blue from natural sources, artists throughout history have had to create synthetic blue pigments. Before YInMn Blue, the last commercially manufactured inorganic blue pigment was cobalt, which was discovered in 1802 and produced for the first time in France in 1807, according to My Modern Metit’s Emma Taggart. Cobalt is poisonous if consumed in large quantities; it does not reflect heat well and tends to disappear over time.
“[YInMn Blue is] really exceptional blue, because it reflects heat more than cobalt blue, it’s really stable and it’s a really great color like lapis lazuli, ”Subramanian told NPR.