Abstract. Cadmium (Cd), a Group 12 (IIB) element occurring between zinc and mercury, is a soft, ductile, and silver-white metal with a distorted, hexagonal, and close-packed crystal structure. Its crustal abundance is between 0.1 and 0.5 ppm, and several cadmium minerals have been identified, the most common being greenockite (CdS).
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