[Ora]

Hello everyone. I am going into a career in histology, so I am somewhat involved in the sciences. As such, one of my friends asked me the other day if I could have a chunk of any pure element, which element would it be? I happen to think Sulfur makes beautiful crystals, I love their brilliant yellow-green color. After answering that I would like a Sulfur crystal, I went about checking the possibility of making it happen. Turns out Sulfur is pretty easy to get your hands on. I have a Sulfur crystal now, and I am exploring ways to turn my crystal into a piece of jewelry. Now I am by no means a chemist, so this is why I ask the following question. I am looking at getting it made into a necklace at a local bead shop and having the crystal encased in a copper wire cage. However, I know sulfur oxidizes most metals, and I know for certain that Sulfur reacts with Copper to create Copper Sulfide. What I can't figure out is this: Does the reaction to create Copper Sulfide require heat, or will it happen if the two elements come into contact at room temperature? I'm worried that making such a necklace out of solid copper and solid sulfur would produce a reaction that would ruin both my crystal and the copper wiring. Another idea I had was using copper wiring that has already been oxidized to changed the element into a new compound that may not react with sulfur with the added bonus of the copper wiring having a nice blue-green coloring. I am assuming the product of copper oxidation is known as Copper Oxide. I can't seem to find anything on the internet that would suggest Copper Oxide and Sulfur react, but I can't find anything on the internet that suggests they won't react either. So I registered here to ask this question and see what people who are better at chemistry than I think of the feasibility of my envisioned sulfur necklace. Any feedback is much appreciated.

[Borek]

Won't work IMHO. Stones (jewels, crystals.. whatever you want to call them) used in jewelry need to be hard and inert, none of the substances you are mentioning has these qualities (which is why they are not routinely used).

Sulfur will react with copper at room temperature. Slowly, but fast enough to ruin the necklace - my guess is it will take a few weeks before it will be a piece of a corroded junk.

[Arkcon]

If you like the brilliant red metallic color of copper metal, you will have to lacquer it.  It rapidly oxidizes in air, and gets duller in color.  Your breathless text block is a little hard to parse, so you may be expecting the blue-green patina, but you should also expect the patina to be friable, and start flaking off, even as it reforms.  Besides this and many other copper problems, sulfur crystals are pretty friable.  Now, you can buy or make sulfur crystals, but you can only really keep them in a box of cotton in your element collection.  Mounting them in jewelry would be problematical enough, and bouncing around in a metal cage -- no, that won't work.

[Ora]

I see. Well, thanks for all the feedback everyone. I suppose I will just keep it in a display case.