Dysprosium
Name: Dysprosium
Symbol: Dy
Atomic Number: 66
Mass fraction of the earth’s shell: 4 x 10-4 %
Melting Point: 1407 °C
Boiling Point: 2567 °C
Electrical Conductivity: 3,51 · 106 A·V−1·m−1
Dysprosium is one of the lanthanides in the periodic table.
Name: Dysprosium
Symbol: Dy
Atomic Number: 66
Mass fraction of the earth’s shell: 4 x 10-4 %
Melting Point: 1407 °C
Boiling Point: 2567 °C
Electrical Conductivity: 3,51 · 106 A·V−1·m−1
Dysprosium is one of the lanthanides in the periodic table.
HISTORY
Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran
After discovering gallium in 1875, the French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran achieved another stroke of genius in Paris in 1886 when he found that lanthanides often occur in compounds and are very similar to each other. It is therefore not easy to distinguish between the metals. Therefore, while it had previously been assumed that holmium was a uniform substance, de Boisbaudran was able to identify another substance by means of spectral analysis. With great effort, he finally established the existence of dysprosium oxide in a sample of holmium oxide. The name comes from the Greek and aptly means something like difficult to access.
In 1906, Georges Urbain isolated dysprosium for the first time. However, the metal was first obtained in its pure form in the 1950s after the invention of ion exchange technology.
CHARACTERISTICS & EXTRACTION
Dysprosium has a bright silver lustre, is relatively stable in air, reacts violently with water, and dissolves in acid. It can be machined without producing sparks. At low temperatures, dysprosium has one of the highest magnetic forces of the rare earth metals. The metal is very base and therefore very reactive.
Dysprosium is generally found in small proportions in minerals such as xenotime, monazite, and bastnäsite. By far the largest share of this rare earth’s annual production is mined and processed in China.
To extract pure dysprosium, it must first be separated from the accompanying lanthanides. The dysprosium oxide is then converted to dysprosium fluoride with hydrogen fluoride. With the help of calcium, the reduction to metallic dysprosium then takes place. Remelting ensures the product is as pure as possible. For high-purity dysprosium, distillation in a high vacuum is also necessary.
