Lighter flint material

Cerium particles ignite in air but cerium metal is soft and sparks cannot be drawn from it. CeFe2 with small amounts of magnesium, copper, and tin makes an excellent lighter flint material because it is hard and brittle. 

Lighter Flints and Getters. Traditionally the item most widely associated with cerium has been the pyrophoric iron-mischmetal (- 0%) alloy for lighter flints, in limited use in the 1990s. Similar low vapor pressure reactive alloys based on cerium, such as Th2Al-MM, can also be used as getters for electronic equipment and vacuum tubes (see Electronic materials Vacuumtechnology). 

OTHER COMMENTS used in the manufacture of ceramics, glass, and porcelains used in the synthesis of pigments, dyes, and water repellants use as abrasive and polishing materials use as an igniter in manufacture of explosives and other detonators, photoflash bulbs, and lighter flints useful in the manufacture of skin ointments and antiperspirants also used as a deoxidizer, denitrifier, and desulfurizer in iron and steel manufacture. 

You may find lanthanides as the flint in cigarette lighters for example, alloys of cerium and iron form a material called auer metal. When it s struck, it... 

When the mixed rare earths as they are extracted from the various ores are reduced to the metal, the alloy produced is known as misch metal. This alloy, as well as metallic cerium, have found wide applications in the metallurgical industries. They are used as getters to remove or localize impurities in other metals, e.g., steel and ductile iron. They are also used in the manufacture of flints in cigarette lighters and have found use as pyrophoric materials in many military applications. This, of course, is only a partial list of the applications which have been found for the mixed rare earths, but the total sales of these materials account for about one-half of the dollar value and more than 90% of the tonnage volume of the rare earths consumed in the world. 

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