The Earth Story

Island of the Rare Earths

In the 1700s, there was a mine on an island called Resarö, about 15 km north of Sweden’s capital city of Stockholm. At the time, the mine was pulling a type of feldspar out of the ground for making porcelain, useful for stoves and furnaces in Sweden. The mine was named for the local community, the Ytterby mine.

In 1787, a Swedish Army Lieutenant named Carl Axel Arrhenius who had a background in chemistry recognized that there was something odd about one of the dark black rocks at this site. He collected a sample of the rock, named it “ytterbite” since it was discovered at the Ytterby quarry and sent it off to several professors including Johan Gadolin at Åbo University.

Professor Gadolin isolated some components from the rock and realized that he was dealing with an element that had not been previously characterized. He named the compound “Ytterbia” and published its discovery as a newly-characterized element.

However, this rock was more complicated. Half a century later, another scientist named Carl Gustav Mosander worked on the same material and realized that there was more than 1 element t here. He was able to split the ytterbite into 4 different elements at the time, each with slightly different properties.

As this was before the periodic table of elements was created, they had no way of knowing that they were dealing with the Rare Earth Elements – the uppermost of the rows at the very bottom of the periodic table. These elements are very similar in their chemistry – they make the same type of ions and their sizes are only slightly different, so the elements follow each other quite well. The original ytterbite rock collected by Arrhenius was rich in all the rare earth elements; they just had to be isolated.

Eventually those four piles of elements were broken up again and a total of 10 different chemical elements were isolated from this single rock sample. Today, the legacy of this mine is buried within the names on the Periodic Table. Ytterbium comes directly from the name of the mine, and terbium, erbium, and yttrium were all split by Mosander. Gadolinium was later named for professor Gadolin, Holmium is named after Stockholm, and scandium and thulium were named after Scandanavia (Thule).

So, the next time you struggle to pronounce the name of one of the elements at the bottom of the periodic table, pause for a moment and think about Sweden. Our modern society uses those elements heavily in batteries and electronics, so they both made the electronics age possible and made a small part of it a little bit difficult for me to memorize.

-JBB

Image credits: https://flic.kr/p/91kyGh

http://bit.ly/1cwN5Av

Read more: http://bit.ly/1Pvq250

http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/rareearths.php

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed078p1343

http://slate.me/1cwNumt

Japanese overcome against China’s stranglehold over rare earth elements!

Since the 1990s, China had a near monopoly over rare Earth metals. These rare Earth metals, such as europium (http://on.fb.me/14VqvLo), dysprosium, ytterbium, and terbium, are important in use for raw materials in hi-technologies & advanced weapon systems. Controlling nearly 97% of the global supply, China started restricting exports in 2009.

Japan, as the third largest consumer of these minerals, found the restriction of the exports as a call for urgency on finding their own source of these elements. They took immediate actions by dispatching their own team of marine scientists to explore the seabed of the Pacific Ocean for their own source of metals. Two years later in 2011, Japan hit the jackpot as they discovered a large quantity of the metals near Hawaii and Tahiti. Then again, last month near the same region of the first findings. The latest find is located in the deep-sea mud around the island of Minami-Torishima. It sits at 5.7 km below sea level.

Leading the team is Professor Yasuhiro Kato of Tokyo University. Professor Kato claims the extraction of the minerals to be a low costly venture. With just the use of pressurized air and a minimal disturbance of the seafloor, he believes that they can extract enough minerals to force China to lift their restrictions. Professor Kato will continue his research for the next two years.

Other countries such as the U.S. and parts of Europe are also building a case against China while also opening up their own mining explorations. The use of these metals can also extend out to green technology, health care, etc.

~era

Sources: [Japanese found metals in 2011] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/8616623/Rare-earth-minerals-find-in-Pacific-could-spark-Japan-Hawaii-stand-off.html [Japanese Finds metal in March 2013] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9951299/Japan-breaks-Chinas-stranglehold-on-rare-metals-with-sea-mud-bonanza.html [China’s announced restriction on exports] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8022484/China-blocked-exports-of-rare-earth-metals-to-Japan-traders-claim.html [Overall information] http://www.eaglespeak.us/2013/03/breaking-chinas-monopoly-japan-says-its.html

More info on the minerals from our page: http://on.fb.me/14VqvLo [Europium] http://on.fb.me/10HLPwB [Industrial mining]

Island of the Rare Earths

In the 1700s, there was a mine on an island called Resarö, about 15 km north of Sweden’s capital city of Stockholm. At the time, the mine was pulling a type of feldspar out of the ground for making porcelain, useful for stoves and furnaces in Sweden. The mine was named for the local community, the Ytterby mine,

In 1787, a Swedish Army Lieutenant named Carl Axel Arrhenius who had a background in chemistry recognized that there was something odd about one of the dark black rocks at this site. He collected a sample of the rock, named it “ytterbite” since it was discovered at the Ytterby quarry and sent it off to several professors including Johan Gadolin at Åbo University.

Professor Gadolin isolated some components from the rock and realized that he was dealing with an element that had not been previously characterized. He named the compound “Ytterbia” and published its discovery as a newly-characterized element.

However, this rock was more complicated. Half a century later, another scientist named Carl Gustav Mosander worked on the same material and realized that there was more than 1 element t here. He was able to split the ytterbite into 4 different elements at the time, each with slightly different properties.

As this was before the periodic table of elements was created, they had no way of knowing that they were dealing with the Rare Earth Elements – the uppermost of the rows at the very bottom of the periodic table. These elements are very similar in their chemistry – they make the same type of ions and their sizes are only slightly different, so the elements follow each other quite well. The original ytterbite rock collected by Arrhenius was rich in all the rare earth elements; they just had to be isolated.

Eventually those four piles of elements were broken up again and a total of 10 different chemical elements were isolated from this single rock sample. Today, the legacy of this mine is buried within the names on the Periodic Table. Ytterbium comes directly from the name of the mine, and terbium, erbium, and yttrium were all split by Mosander. Gadolinium was later named for professor Gadolin, Holmium is named after Stockholm, and scandium and thulium were named after Scandanavia (Thule).

So, the next time you struggle to pronounce the name of one of the elements at the bottom of the periodic table, pause for a moment and think about Sweden. Our modern society uses those elements heavily in batteries and electronics, so they both made the electronics age possible and made a small part of it a little bit difficult for me to memorize.

-JBB

Image credits: https://flic.kr/p/91kyGh

http://bit.ly/1cwN5Av

Read more: http://bit.ly/1Pvq250

http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/rareearths.php

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed078p1343

http://slate.me/1cwNumt