Category Elements

               As we have already seen, many elements were discovered in the Swedish village Ytterby. The element erbium was one among them, and was discovered in 1843. It was the Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander who discovered the element. Mosander was working with a sample of what was thought to be the single metal oxide yttria, derived from the mineral gadolinite. He extracted three segments from it and called them yttria, erbia and terbia. As might be expected considering the similarities between their names and properties, scientists soon confused erbia and terbia. Mosander’s terbia became known as erbia after 1860, and the earlier known erbia was renamed terbia after 1877!

               It is difficult to find natural erbium independently on earth as it is always found in chemical compounds. Erbium has a special ability to absorb harmful infra-red rays. Therefore, the element is used in the glass of safety goggles for welders.

               Erbium occurs in a variety of minerals, including gadolinite, euxenite, xenotime, fergusonite, polycrase and blomstrandine.

               The atomic number of erbium is 68, and its symbol is Er.

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               Stockholm is the capital city of Sweden. Holmium is named after this city which is known as   Holmia in Latin.

               The element was discovered spectroscopically by Marc Delafontaine and Jacques-Louis Soret in 1878. Per Teodor Cleve, a Swedish chemist, discovered the element independently in 1879, and he named it after his hometown, Stockholm. The pure metal was isolated in 1911, by Otto Holmberg.

               Holmium is a bright, soft, silvery white element. The element has some special magnetic properties and they enable holmium to be used in alloys for the production of magnets. Holmium magnets can, in fact, create the strongest magnetic fields. Holmium is also used in nuclear reactors.

               Holmium is not generally seen as a free element in nature but is found in compounds in a number of minerals such as gadolinite and monazite.

               It is commercially extracted from monazite and occurs in that mineral at a rate of about 0.05 per cent.

               Holmium is mainly used in laser surgery. There are not many commercial uses for the element.

               The atomic number of holmium is 67, and it is represented as Ho.

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               Terbium is a silvery-white element, which is malleable and so soft that it can be cut with a knife.

               It is named after the Swedish village of Ytterby, where the first sample of the element was found.

               In 1843, Swedish chemist Carl Gustaf Mosander separated the mineral gadolinite into three materials, which he called yttria, erbia and terbia. From two of these substances, he discovered erbium and terbium. Erbium and two other elements namely ytterbium and yttrium are also named after Ytterby. Although terbium is relatively stable in the air, it reacts with water when exposed to it. It’s used in x-ray imaging screens and CDs. Terbium has the atomic number 65, and is represented as Tb.

               Dysprosium is a soft silvery metal. The element was discovered in 1886 by Paul-Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a French chemist, but he was not able to isolate it. It was not isolated until 1950, when Canadian scientist Frank Spedding and his team developed ion-exchange separation and metallographic reduction techniques.

               Dysprosium is not currently used for a wide range of applications except when there is no other alternative. The atomic number of dysprosium is 66, and the symbol is Dy.

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               You do not have to think too much to realize how europium got its name. It is named after the continent Europe.

               Europium is silvery white in colour. However, since the element reacts with air, it is rarely seen without dis-colouration. It can be easily moulded or shaped, and is about as hard as lead. The French chemist, Eugene-Anatole Demarcay, is credited with the discovery of the element as it was he who ultimately produced a relatively pure form of europium in 1901. Although humans had been using this element and had known of its existence, it took many years for man to isolate the element properly.

               Europium can be found in the ores bastnasite and monazite. The element has also been identified in the sun, and some other stars. The atomic number of europium is 63, and it is represented as Eu.

               Gadolinium is also silvery white in colour in its pure form. It is named after the mineral gadolinite, one of the minerals in which gadolinium is found. It is a malleable and ductile element. Its magnetic properties allow it to be tracked through the human body; and therefore, it is used for magnetic resonance imaging in medical diagnosis. The atomic number of gadolinium is 64, and the symbol is Gd.

               Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a Russian mining engineer, was instrumental in the discovery of a particular mineral which was named ‘samarskite’ after his own name. Our element, samarium, was first extracted from this mineral, and thus, is named after it. Samarsky-Bykhovets may be the first person to be the namesake of an element, although indirectly.

               Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a French chemist, discovered the element in 1879. The element is moderately hard and greyish white in colour. It is fairly stable in the air and has a bright silver sheen. Samarium is found in many minerals, including monazite and bastnasite, which are commercially desirable sources. While samarium has not been isolated in its pure form until recently, mischmetal, an alloy mix containing about 1 per cent of samarium metal, has been in use for a long time.

               Samarium forms a compound with cobalt and this alloy is a powerful permanent magnet. It has the highest resistance to demagnetization of any known material. The element is used as a neutron absorber in nuclear reactors and in infrared absorbing glass.

               The atomic number of samarium is 62, and it is represented as Sm.

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            Prometheus is a legendary Greek hero. He is known as a trickster because he defied the gods and stole fire from them to give it to Man. Promethium is named after Prometheus. The reason is that the element glows in the dark like the fire of Prometheus!

            The discovery of the element was the result of the hard work of four scientists: Charles D. Coryell, Jacob A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin, and Harold G. Richter. They were trying to create fuel for an atomic bomb. The first identification and separation of element happened in 1945. They were able to extract promethium-147, an isotope of the element, from the by-products of uranium fission.

            The element had been discovered, in the spectrum of HR 465, a star in a constellation called Andromedae, which lies 520 light-years away from us.

           The glow-in-the-dark promethium is a highly radioactive element. The element is not easily found anywhere on Earth. Due to its rarity, the element is primarily used for research. However, scientists look at it as an element with a variety of possibilities. It could be used in medical devices, batteries, and in luminescent paint. The atomic number of promethium is 61, and it is represented as Pm.