Earth elements

Elements in the s and p blocks of the table are referred to as typical elements whilst those in the d block are called transition elements and those in the/block are called actinides and lanthanides (or rare earth elements). 

Chemically it is one of the alkaline earth elements it readily forms a white coating of nitride in air, reacts with water, burns with a yellow-red flame, forming largely the nitride. 

Lanthanum was isolated in relatively pure form in 1923. Iron exchange and solvent extraction techniques have led to much easier isolation of the so-called "rare-earth" elements. 

The element occurs along with other rare-earth elements in a variety of minerals. Monazite and bastnasite are the two principal commercial sources of the rare-earth metals. It was prepared in relatively pure form in 1931. 

Terbium has been isolated only in recent years with the development of ion-exchange techniques for separating the rare-earth elements. As with other rare earths, it can be produced by reducing the anhydrous chloride or fluoride with calcium metal in a tantalum crucible. Calcium and tantalum impurities can be removed by vacuum remelting. Other methods of isolation are possible. 

Figure 47.6). By choosing which isotope to mea.sure, all of the rare earth elements can be analyzed accurately and quickly following their ion-exchange separation into just two fractions. 

Ca is replaced by a rare-earth element, resulting in a distorted perovskite stmcture, which is essentially orthorhombic. Orthoferrites, studied extensively in the early 1970s as potential data storage materials based on magnetic bubble domains (10), have been largely replaced by the garnet materials (see... 

D very weak or inactive many metal, alkaline-earth, and rare-earth element haUdes... 

Figure 10 presents the Curie temperature (T ) vs the TM-content (x) for Co- and Fe-based biaary alloys. Alloying rare-earth elements with small amounts of transition metals (x < 0.2) leads to a decrease ia Curie temperature. This is particularly obvious ia the Gd—Co system where it corresponds to a nonmagnetic dilution similar to that of Cu (41,42). This iadicates that TM atoms experience no exchange coupling unless they are surrounded by a minimum number j of other TM atoms. The critical number is j = 5 for Fe and j = 7 for Co. The steep iacrease of for Co-based alloys with x about 0.7 is based on this effect. 

Comparing the relative abundance of the rare earths and the other elements Hsted in Table 1, the rare earths are not so rare. Cerium, the most abundant of the rare-earth elements is roughly as abundant as tin thuHum, the least abundant, is more common than cadmium or silver. Over 200... 

Mona.Zlte, The commercial digestion process for m on a site uses caustic soda. The phosphate content of the ore is recovered as marketable trisodium phosphate and the rare earths as RE hydroxide (10). The usual industrial practice is to attack finely ground m on a site using a 50% sodium hydroxide solution at 150°C or a 70% sodium hydroxide solution at 180°C. The resultant mixed rare-earth and thorium hydroxide cake is dissolved in hydrochloric or nitric acid, then processed to remove thorium and other nonrare-earth elements, and processed to recover the individual rare earths (see... 

Selective Reduction. In aqueous solution, europium(III) [22541 -18-0] reduction to europium(II) [16910-54-6] is carried out by treatment with amalgams or zinc, or by continuous electrolytic reduction. Photochemical reduction has also been proposed. When reduced to the divalent state, europium exhibits chemical properties similar to the alkaline-earth elements and can be selectively precipitated as a sulfate, for example. This process is highly selective and allows production of high purity europium fromlow europium content solutions (see Calcium compounds Strontiumand strontium compounds). 

Liquid—Liquid Extraction. The tiquid—tiquid extraction process for the rare-earth separation was discovered by Fischer (14). Extraction of REE using an alcohol, ether, or ketone gives separation factors of up to 1.5. The selectivity of the distribution of two rare-earth elements, REI and RE2, between two nonmiscible tiquid phases is given by the ratio of the distribution coefficients DI and D2 ... 

Industrial Apphcations of Rare Earth Elements," ACS Symp. Ser, 164,1981. 

Laser isotope separation techniques have been demonstrated for many elements, including hydrogen, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sHicon, sulfur, chlorine, titanium, selenium, bromine, molybdenum, barium, osmium, mercury, and some of the rare-earth elements. The most significant separation involves uranium, separating uranium-235 [15117-96-1], from uranium-238 [7440-61-1], (see Uranium and uranium compounds). The... 

In general, the chemistry of inorganic lead compounds is similar to that of the alkaline-earth elements. Thus the carbonate, nitrate, and sulfate of lead are isomorphous with the corresponding compounds of calcium, barium, and strontium. In addition, many inorganic lead compounds possess two or more crystalline forms having different properties. For example, the oxides and the sulfide of bivalent lead are frequendy colored as a result of their state of crystallisation. Pure, tetragonal a-PbO is red pure, orthorhombic P PbO is yeUow and crystals of lead sulfide, PbS, have a black, metallic luster. 

Some nut trees accumulate mineral elements. Hickory nut is notable as an accumulator of aluminum compounds (30) the ash of its leaves contains up to 37.5% of AI2O2, compared with only 0.032% of aluminum oxide in the ash of the Fnglish walnut s autumn leaves. As an accumulator of rare-earth elements, hickory greatly exceeds all other plants their leaves show up to 2296 ppm of rare earths (scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium). The amounts of rare-earth elements found in parts of the hickory nut are kernels, at 5 ppm shells, at 7 ppm and shucks, at 17 ppm. The kernel of the Bra2d nut contains large amounts of barium in an insoluble form when the nut is eaten, barium dissolves in the hydrochloric acid of the stomach. 

Oxahc acid is used in various industrial areas, such as textile manufacture and processing, metal surface treatments (qv), leather tanning, cobalt production, and separation and recovery of rare-earth elements. Substantial quantities of oxahc acid are also consumed in the production of agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other chemical derivatives. 

Uses of oxalic acid ia each region are summarized in Table 5 (58). The demand for agrochemical/pharmaceutical production and for separation/recovery of rare-earth elements in each region has been increasing. The use for marble polishing in western Europe is unique to the region. 

Separation and Recovery of Rare-Earth Elements. Because rare-earth oxalates have low solubihty in acidic solutions, oxaUc acid is used for the separation and recovery of rare-earth elements (65). For the decomposition of rare-earth phosphate ores, such as mona ite and xenotime, a wet process using sulfuric acid has been widely employed. There is also a calcination process using alkaLine-earth compounds as a decomposition aid (66). In either process, rare-earth elements are recovered by the precipitation of oxalates, which are then converted to the corresponding oxides. 

Anhydrous ammonium oxalate is obtained when the monohydrate is dehydrated at 65°C. The monohydrate is a colorless crystal or white powder, and dissolves in water at 0°C up to 2.17 wt %, and 50°C up to 9.63 wt %. It is slightly soluble in alcohol and insoluble in ether. It is used for textiles, leather tanning, and precipitation of rare-earth elements. 

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