Gadolin, Johann

Yttrium (Y, [Kr]4J15.r), name and symbol after Ytterby, Sweden. Discovered (1789) by the Finnish chemist Johann Gadolin. 

ORIGIN OF NAME Named for the mineral gadolinite, which was named for the French chemist Johann Gadolin. 

Yttrium Y 1789 or 94 (Abo, Finland Johann Gadolin (Finnish) or Stockholm, Sweden) 119... 

Historically, the first rare earth specimen was found by K. A. Arrhenius near Ytterby in 1787. The Finnish Chemist, Johann Gadolin, in 1794, for the first time, successfully separated a new oxide from the mineral found by Arrhenius. This new oxide was named yttria by Ekebero (1797). The mineral was named gadolinite. In 1803 another oxide, very similar to yttria, was discovered independently by Klaproth, and Berzelius and Hisinger. This new oxide was named ceria, and the mineral from which it was isolated was called cerite. 

Yttrium Y 39 Johann Gadolin Finland Village of "Ytterby" near Vaxholm in Sweden... 

Lanthanide chemistry started in Scandinavia. In 1794 Johann Gadolin succeeded in obtaining an earth (oxide) from a black mineral subsequently known as gadolinite he called the earth yttria. Soon afterwards, M.H. Klaproth, J.J. Berzelius and W. Hisinger obtained ceria, another earth, from cerite. However, it was not until 1839-1843 that the Swede C.G. Mosander first separated these earths into their component oxides thus ceria was resolved into the oxides of cerium and lanthanum and a mixed oxide didymia (a mixture of the oxides of the metals from Pr through Gd). The original yttria was similarly separated into substances called erbia, terbia, and yttria (though some 40 years later, the first two names were to be reversed ). This kind of confusion was made worse by the fact that the newly discovered means of spectroscopic analysis permitted misidentifications, so that around 70 new elements were erroneously claimed in the course of the century. 

Fig. 1.2 Johann Gadolin. Image Source Wikipedia (2015) Johann Gadolin. Reference Dean and Dean (1996)...

In 1794 the Finnish chemist Johann Gadolin, a chemist at the University of Abo, separated an oxide of an unknown element from ytterbite and named it yttrium. The mineral had been found seven years before in an old quarry at Yt-terby, a small Swedish village. The village gave the name to the mineral (although later it was rechristened gadolinite in honour of Gadolin) and then to yttrium and three more REEs erbium, terbium, and ytterbium. 

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