Description
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Dysprosium is a lanthanide that has a silvery white color in its natural solid state. Bolt cutters can be used to cut dysprosium, and it is stable in the air at room temperatures. Dysprosium has an atomic weight of 162.500, a melting point of 2565 °F, and a boiling point of 4653 °F. Some common uses of dysprosium include: as a component in laser materials, in nuclear rods for cooling reactors, as a component in infrared radiation, and in the manufacture of nanomagnets.
Isolation
Dysprosium is never found in its free state in nature, but occurs in many minerals which contain other rare elements and lanthanides that it has to be isolated from.
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The isolation procedures of dysprosium are highly complex and involve multiple chemical reactions. Due to the fact that dysprosium must be separated from other elements with similar chemical characteristics, the complex isolation procedures are never performed on a small scale basis in laboratories. Dysprosium most often occurs in minerals such as bastnasite, euxenite, erbium, holmium, fergusonite, monazite, and xenotime.
The extraction process of dysprosium begins with treating the minerals it occurs in with sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and sodium hydroxide. This process extracts the lanthanides from their minerals in a salt form. Repeated solvent extractions and ion exchange chromatography are used to further reduce and isolation dysprosium. Once dysprosium has been reduced to its fluoride form, it is reacted with pure calcium metal. This reaction takes place under heated conditions to separate the dysprosium from the fluoride. Any excess calcium that remains as a contaminant in the dysprosium is removed through vacuum resulting in pure dysprosium.