Where is lutetium found

Urbain was eventually credited with the discovery of the elements and won the right to name them, although chemists later changed the name neoytterbium back to ytterbium and changed the spelling of lutecium to lutetium. Today, lutetium is primarily obtained through an ion exchange process from monazite sand Ce, La, Th, Nd, Y PO 4 , a material rich in rare earth elements.

Lutetium is one of the most difficult elements to prepare and has no large scale practical uses, although some of its radioactive isotopes can be used as a catalyst in the cracking of petroleum products and a catalyst in some hydrogenation and polymerization processes.

Estimated Oceanic Abundance : 1. Number of Stable Isotopes : 1 View all isotope data. Electron Shell Configuration :. The pure metal has been isolated only in recent years and is one of the most difficult to prepare. It can be prepared by the reduction of anhydrous LuCl 3 or LuF 3 by an alkali or alkaline earth metal. The metal is silvery white and relatively stable in air. It is the hardest and the densest of the lanthanides. Lutetium is very expensive to obtain on useful quantities and therefore it has very few commercial uses.

One commercial application has been as a pure beta emitter, using lutetium which has been exposed to neutron activation. A tiny amount of lutetium is added as a dopant to gadolinium gallim garnet GGG , which is used in magnetic bubble memory devices. It is a rare earth metal and perhaps the most expensive of all rare elements. It is found in small amounts with all rare earth metals, and is very difficult to separate from other rare elements. This is largely because of the way it is found in nature.

The lanthanides are found in nature in a number of minerals. Excess Reagent. Catalytic Reaction Catalysis. Aufbau Principle.

Lewis Structure. Elementary Reaction. Formal Charge. Buffer Solution. Metathesis Reaction. Dynamic Equilibrium. About Contact.