Terbium, abundance

Yttrium (j Y) is often confused with another element of the lanthanide series of rare Earths— Ytterbium ( Yb). Also confusing is the fact that the rare-earth elements terbium and erbium were found in the same minerals in the same quarry in Sweden. Yttrium ranks second in abundance of all 16 rare-earth, and Ytterbium ranks 10th. Yttrium is a dark silvery-gray hghtweight metal that, in the form of powder or shavings, will ignite spontaneously. Therefore, it is considered a moderately active rare-earth metal. 

Of all the 17 rare-earths in the lanthanide series, terbium is number 14 in abundance. Terbium can be separated from the minerals xenotime (YPO ) and euxenite, a mixmre of the following (Y, Ca, Er, La, Ce, Y, Th)(Nb, Ta, Ti O ). It is obtained in commercial amount from monazite sand by the ion-exchange process. Monazite may contain as much as 50% rare-earth elements, and about 0.03% of this is terbium. 

Terbium occurs in nature associated with other rare earths. It is found in minerals xenotime, a rare earth phosphate consisting of 1% terbia and in euxenite, a complex oxide containing about 1.3% terbia. It also is found in cerite, monazite, and gadolinite. Also, the element has been detected in stellar matter. Abundance of terbium in the earth s crust is estimated to be 1.2 mg/kg. 

In the year 1886 Lecoq de Boisbaudran separated pure holmia into two earths, which he called holmia and dysprosta. He accomplished this by fractional precipitation, first with ammonium hydroxide and then with a saturated solution of potassium sulfate, and found that the constituents of impure holmium solutions precipitate in the following order terbium, dysprosium, holmium, and erbium (3, 37, 48). Lecoq de Boisbaudran never had an abundant supply of raw materials for his remarkable researches on the rare earths, and he once confided to Professor Urbain that most of his fractionations had been carried out on the marble slab of his fireplace (56). 

Terbium is classified as a rare earth element. The term is misleading because terbium is not especially rare in Earth s crust. It is more abundant than better known metals such as silver and mercury. Although the rare earth elements are not actually scarce, they were once very difficult to separate from each other. They have physical and chemical properties very similar to each other. 

Terbium is one of the rarest of the lanthanoids. ft ranks about 55th among the elements in Earth s cmst. It is about as abundant as molybdenum and tungsten, but more abundant than iodine, silver, and gold. 

Despite all the technological applications and investigations of rare-earth YAG lasers, the optical spectra of some of the rare-earth ions in this host are of questionable quality and in some cases nonexistent. Only two rare-earth ions in YAG, neodymium and erbium, have been thoroughly investigated and reported. This is rather surprising when compared to lanthanum trifluoride (LaFa), for which Kaminskii reports only 16 lasers, although abundant excellent data exist (Camall et al., 1977) for all of the rare-earth ions in LaFs except terbium. 

Starting from 1913 scientists from various countries had been searching intensely for the elusive rare-earth element and it seemed strange that they had not found it earlier. Indeed, the elements of the first half of the rare-earth family known as the cerium elements (from lanthanum to gadolinium) had been shown by geochemists to be more abundant in nature than the yttrium elements of the second half of the family (from terbium to lutecium). But all the yttrium elements had been found while an empty box had remained in the cerium group between neodymium and samarium. 

The rare earth minerals are composed of scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides. The lanthanides comprise a group of 15 elements that include lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium. Cerium is the most abundant element in the rare earth group at 60 ppm, followed by yttrium at 33 ppm, lanthanum at 30 ppm, and neodymium at 28 ppm. Thulium and lutetium are the least abundant at 0.5 ppm. 

It surprises most people to learn that several of the so-called rare earth elements are not actually that rare compared to much more familiar elements. Neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, gadolinium, dysprosium, erbium, and ytterbium are all more abundant than more familiar elements like bromine, uranium, or tin. Europium, holmium, terbium, lutetium, and thulium are more abundant than iodine, silver, or mercury. Yet few people have even heard of most of the rare earths. The reason is that rare earths tend not to concentrate in large ore deposits in the way that better known metals do. Historically there have been fewer profits to be made from mining rare earth elements, and there have been fewer applications developed for them in industry. 

Cerium is the most abundant element of the rare earths. On average the Earth s crast contains 66 ppm of cerium (=66 g per ton), a value that is very comparable with the abundance of copper (68 ppm) (Emsley, 1991). Eew people know that there are on Earth larger resources of cerium than of other more popular elements like cobalt (29 ppm), lead (13 ppm), tin (2.1 ppm), silver (0.08 ppm) or gold (0.004 ppm). A special property of cerium is that it has a stable tetravalent oxidation state besides the trivalent state which is so common for the rare earths. Although the tetravalent oxidation state is also known for solid state compounds of praseodymium and terbium, cerium is the only rare-earth element that has a stable tetravalent oxidation state in solution. Many of the applications of cerium are based on the one-electron Ce +/Ce + redox couple. 

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