A table listing the 17 rare-earth elements, their atomic number and symbol, the etymology of their names, and their … 展开

Rare earths were mainly discovered as components of minerals. Ytterbium was found in the "ytterbite" (renamed to gadolinite in 1800) discovered by Lieutenant Carl Axel Arrhenius in 1787 at a quarry in the village of … 展开

During the 1940s, Frank Spedding and others in the United States (during the Manhattan Project) developed chemical ion-exchange procedures for separating and purifying rare-earth elements. This method was first applied … 展开

Before the time that ion exchange methods and elution were available, the separation of the rare earths was primarily achieved by repeated precipitation or crystallization. In those days, the first separation was into two main groups, th… 展开

Rare-earth elements, except scandium, are heavier than iron and thus are produced by supernova nucleosynthesis or by the s-process in asymptotic giant branch stars. In nature, spontaneous fission of uranium-238 produces trace a… 展开

Rare-earth elements occur in nature in combination with phosphate (monazite), carbonate-fluoride (bastnäsite), and oxygen anions.
In their oxides, most rare-earth elements only have a vale… 展开