Hi! I’m gallium. The friendly metal that melts in your hands making a mess and your mom angry when I hit the carpet.

Industrial executives must be slightly annoyed that literal tons of this precious commodity are being squandered by kids who heard from their (grandparents?) about how in the olden days they broke thermometers to play with the liquid metal inside. The price of gallium has been on a steady increase and while it’s not anything beyond personal conjecture at least a portion of this must be due to this unusual use.

And where exactly do these industrialists use gallium for ‘legitimate’ purposes? Well, when it comes to elements used in electronics, gallium happens to be second only to silicon in the amount and variety of uses where it’s employed. Together with indium and arsenic, gallium forms the backbone of a million and one different types of electronic components the most high profile example of which is the LED. A light emitting diode is really just a tiny bit of a gallium-containing alloy which transforms an electrical current into light. So, basically, everything that has a screen these days is infused with gallium metal.

What is special about having gallium inside of a glass ampule is that it won’t make a mess. Gallium metal is very susceptible to oxygen and the acids present in organic matter. While it won’t hurt you, you hurt it by merely holding it. The result is that it gets dirty quickly and loses its metallic character - creating that mess referred to. None of that is a worry when the metal is protected from oxygen, allowing repeated melt-thaw cycles while staying pristine.

On the other hand, it’s not exactly a low maintenance toy unfortunately. Gallium has a property which makes it very unsuitable for storing in glass and that is that as it freezes it expands. Glass is a wonderful material but one thing it really does not do well is stretch so if that gallium expands it can and will shatter the glass in exactly the same way that freezing a glass full of water will.

To prevent this from happening all you need to do is make sure that prior to storing you lay down the ampule to allow the metal to expand lengthwise and thus ensure it won’t pool into a bead at the end. Placing it in the freezer for a few minutes does the trick. Alternately, if your ampule is stored at room temperature the liquid will likely never freeze due to the effect of supercooling. In either case, although there’s a flat-bottom option for a better visual fit with the rest of the collection, we recommend the round-bottomed ampule if you intend to do these repeated melt-thaw cycles. This is because the rounded ends help by minimizing the stress presented from right angles.