Source: Hafnium is not found free in nature but is found in most zirconium minerals at a concentration of between one and five percent. Commercially, hafnium is produced as a by-product of zirconium refining. This is done using the Kroll Process, reducing the tetrachloride with magnesium or with sodium.

Hafnium is a good absorber of neutrons and is used to make control rods, such as those found in nuclear submarines. It also has a very high melting point and because of this is used in plasma welding torches. Hafnium has been successfully alloyed with several metals including iron, titanium and niobium.

Occurrence in nature Hafnium is a moderately common element in the Earth’s crust. Its abundance is estimated to be about 5 parts per million.

Ytterbium is found with other rare-earth elements in several rare minerals. It is most often recovered commercially from monazite sand (0.03% ytterbium). The element is also found in euxenite and xenotime. The main mining areas are China, the United States, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, and Australia.

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Health effects of ytterbium Ytterbium has no biological role, but it has been noted that its salts stimulate metabolism. Ytterbium is a skin and eye irritant and it is also a suspected teratogen.

Ytterbium has few uses. It can be alloyed with stainless steel to improve some of its mechanical properties and used as a doping agent in fiber optic cable where it can be used as an amplifier. One of ytterbium’s isotopes is being considered as a radiation source for portable X-ray machines.

Discovery: Swedish chemist Carl Gustav Mosander in 1841 extracted the rare earth oxide residue he called didymium from a residue he called “lantana.” In 1885, Austrian chemist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach separated didymium into two salts of different colors, which he named praseodymium, named for its green color, and …

Ytterbium – Yb

Tin

Explanation: Now all tin isotopes have 50 nuclear protons, and 50 electrons; we know this from the atomic number of Sn, Z=50 . 120Sn has 70 neutrons, 70 massive, neutrally charged nuclear particles.

Ytterbium is the 44th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. It is one of the more common rare earths, present at about 2.7 to 8 parts per million in the crust. It is common in the mineral monazite.

Specific Hazards Arising from the Material: Flammable in the form of dust when exposed to heat, spark or flame. May react with water under fire conditions liberating flammable hydrogen gas. May emit fumes of ytterbium oxide under fire conditions. Avoid breathing dust or fume.

Neodymium is not found naturally in metallic form or unmixed with other lanthanides, and it is usually refined for general use. Although neodymium is classed as a rare-earth element, it is fairly common, no rarer than cobalt, nickel, or copper, and is widely distributed in the Earth’s crust.

Characteristics: Europium is a soft, ductile, silvery-white metal that instantly oxidizes in air. It is the most reactive of the rare earth metals and ignites in air at temperatures in excess of 150 oC to 180 oC. In water it reacts in a similar way to calcium, producing europium hydroxide and hydrogen gas.

Europium is produced by nuclear fission, but the fission product yields of europium isotopes are low near the top of the mass range for fission products.

In this quiz you’ll be shown all 118 chemical symbols, and you’ll need to choose the name of the chemical element that each one represents. The element was discovered in 1901 by French chemist Eugène-Anatole Demarçay and named for Europe.

Europium is one of the rarest and most costly of the rare-earth metals. It is priced about about $7500/kg.

Europium is the most reactive rare-earth element. Because of its high reactivity, solid europium rarely looks shiny. It reacts with water to form europium hydroxide (Eu(OH)3). It swiftly oxidizes in air, ignites in the range of 150–180°C to form Eu3+ oxide (Eu2O3).

Europium can be found in the ores bastnasite and monazite. The element has also been identified in the sun and some stars. Europium is produced by mixing europium oxide (Eu2O3) with a 10 percent excess of lanthanum metal and heating the mixture under high vacuum.

The chemical element Europium, obviously named after the continent, has atomic number 63 the symbol Eu. It oxidizes easily in air and water and is part of the lanthanide series, also known as rare earth elements. Notwithstanding the fact that Eu is a heavy metal, it is comparatively non-toxic.

Americium (chemical symbol Am) is a man-made radioactive metal that is solid under normal conditions. Americium is produced when plutonium absorbs neutrons in nuclear reactors or during nuclear weapons tests. Americium-241 is the most common form of Americium.

Reserves of europium are estimated to be around 150.000 tonnes and world production of the pure metal is around 100 tonnes a year.

green color

For hundreds of years, glassmakers used small amounts of uranium to create yellow or green glass. The yellow tint of this glass led to the nicknames “Vaseline glass” and “canary glass.” Under an ultraviolet (UV) or “black” light, the uranium causes the glass to glow bright green.

Use a blacklight to identify the uranium in vaseline glass. Shine your UV light on the glass piece and look for a neon green glowing color. Using a black light is the only sure way to identify vaseline glass. Other glass pieces may turn green under a black light, but they will not glow like vaseline glass does.

Even though the pools of water surrounding nuclear reactor cores look radioactive, they usually contain less radiation than the surrounding air. So unless you’re swimming in the water directly surrounding a nuclear core, you’re going to be fine.