The Collaborative Dictionary

Yttrium \Yt"tri*um\, n. [NL., from Ytterby, in Sweden. See Erbium.] (Chem.) A rare metallic element of the boron-aluminium group, found in gadolinite and other rare minerals, and extracted as a dark gray powder. Symbol Y. Atomic number

Atomic weight, 88.9. [Written also ittrium.] [1913 Webster +PJC] Note: Associated with yttrium are certain rare elements, as erbium, ytterbium, samarium, etc., which are separated in a pure state with great difficulty. They are studied by means of their spark or phosphorescent spectra. Yttrium is now regarded as probably not a simple element, but as a mixture of several substances. [1913 Webster]

Word Net

yttrium n : a silvery metallic element that is common in rare-earth minerals; used in magnesium and aluminum alloys [syn: Y, atomic number 39]

see Yttrium

English

Etymology

From Ytterby, a town in Sweden.

Noun

1. A metallic chemical element (symbol Y) with an atomic number of 39.

Derived terms

• diyttrium trioxide
• gadolinium yttrium garnet
• yttric
• yttriferous
• yttrious
• yttrite
• yttrium aluminium garnet, yttrium aluminum garnet
• yttrium anhydrous chloride
• yttrium barium copper oxide
• yttrium fluoride
• yttrium lithium fluoride
• yttrium oxide
• yttrium vanadate
• yttro-

Related terms

• erbium
• terbium
• ytter
• ytterbite
• ytterbium
• Ytterby
• ytterite
• yttria

Translations

• Afrikaans: ittrium
• Albanian: itrium
• Arabic: (yítriyum)
• Armenian: իտրիում (itrium)
• Basque: itrioa
• Belarusian: iтрый (ítryj)
• Breton: itriom
• Bulgarian: итрий (ítrij)
• Catalan: itri
• Chinese: 釔 (yī)
• Cornish: ytryum
• Croatian: itrij
• Czech: yttrium
• Danish: yttrium
• Dutch: yttrium
• Esperanto: itrio
• Estonian: ütrium
• Faroese: yttrium
• Finnish: yttrium
• French: yttrium
• West Frisian: yttrium
• Friulian: itri
• Galician: itrio
• Georgian: იტრიუმი (itriumi)
• German: Yttrium
• Greek, Modern: ύττριο (ýttrio)
• Hebrew: איטריום (ítriyum)
• Hungarian: ittrium
• Icelandic: yttrín
• Interlingua: yttrium
• Irish: itriam
• Italian: ittrio
• Japanese: イットリウム (ittoriumu)
• Kashmiri: éter
• Kazakh: иттрий (ittriy)
• Korean: 이트륨 (iteuryum)
• Latvian: itrijs
• Lithuanian: itris
• Luxembourgish: yttrium
• Macedonian: итриум (ítrium)
• Malay: yttrium
• Maltese: ittriju
• Manx: yttrium
• Mongolian: иттри (ittri)
• Norwegian: yttrium
• Polish: itr
• Portuguese: ítrio
• Romanian: ytriu
• Russian: иттрий (íttrij)
• Scottish Gaelic: itriam
• Serbian: итриjум (itrijum)
• Slovak: ytrium
• Slovenian: itrij
• Spanish: itrio
• Swedish: yttrium
• Tajik: ittri'
• Tamil: திகழியம் (thigazhiyam)
• Thai: (itthriam)
• Turkish: itriyum
• Ukrainian: iтрiй (ítrij)
• Uzbek: иттрий (ittriy)
• Vietnamese: ytri
• Welsh: ytriwm

External links

For etymology and more information refer to: http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/y.html (A lot of the translations were taken from that site with permission from the author)

See also

• bastnasite

Finnish

Noun

1. yttrium

Yttrium (), is a chemical element that has the symbol Y and atomic number 39. A silvery metallic transition metal, yttrium is common in rare-earth minerals and two of its compounds are used to make the red color phosphors in cathode ray tube displays, such as those used for televisions.

Notable characteristics

Yttrium is a silver-metallic, lustrous rare earth metal that is relatively stable in air, strongly resembles scandium in appearance, and chemically resembles the lanthanides, and can appear to gain a slight pink lustre on exposure to light. Shavings or turnings of the metal can ignite in air when they exceed 400 °C. When yttrium is finely divided, it is very unstable in air. The metal has a low neutron cross-section for nuclear capture. The common oxidation state of yttrium is +3.

Applications

Yttrium(III) oxide is the most important yttrium compound and is widely used to make YVO4:Eu and Y2O3:Eu phosphors that give the red color in color television picture tubes. Other uses:

• Yttrium oxide is also used to make yttrium iron garnets which are very effective microwave filters.
• Yttrium iron, aluminium, and gadolinium garnets (e.g. Y3Fe5O12 and Y3Al5O12) have interesting magnetic properties. Yttrium iron garnet is very efficient as an acoustic energy transmitter and transducer. Yttrium aluminium garnet has a hardness of 8.5 and is also used as a gemstone (simulated diamond).
• Small amounts of the element (0.1 to 0.2%) have been used to reduce grain size of chromium, molybdenum, titanium, and zirconium. It is also used to increase the strength of aluminium and magnesium alloys.
• Used as a catalyst for ethylene polymerization.
• Yttrium aluminium garnet, Y2O3, yttrium lithium fluoride, and yttrium vanadate are used in combination with dopants such as neodymium, erbium, ytterbium in near-infrared lasers . Both crystals and ceramics are used.
• It is used on the electrodes of some high-performance spark plugs.
• This metal can be used to deoxidize vanadium and other non-ferrous metals.
• Yttrium is also used in the manufacture of gas mantles for propane lanterns, as a replacement for thorium, which is slightly radioactive.
• Cerium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG:Ce) crystals are used as phosphors to make white LEDs.
• Yttrium-90 microspheres have shown promise as a treatment for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
• Yttrium was used as a "secret" element in a YBCO superconductor developed at the University of Houston, YBaCuO. This superconductor operated above 90K, notable because this is above liquid nitrogen's boiling point (77.1K). (Y1.2Ba0.8CuO4). The matter created was a multi-crystal multi-phase mineral, which was black and green.
• Yttrium has been studied for possible use as a nodulizer in the making of nodular cast iron which has increased ductility (the graphite forms compact nodules instead of flakes to form nodular cast iron). Potentially, yttrium can be used in ceramic and glass formulas, since yttrium oxide has a high melting point and imparts shock resistance and low thermal expansion characteristics to glass.
• Yttrium oxide is used to stabilize the cubic form of zirconia, for use in jewelry, etc.
• Yttria (yttrium(III) oxide) is used as a sintering additive in the production of porous silicon nitride.
• Yttrium-90 is used in Zevalin, which is a radioimmunotherapy directed against some types of non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

History

Yttrium, in the form of its oxide "yttria", was the first "rare earth" to be discovered. It was found as a major component of the mineral that came to be known as "gadolinite", in 1794 by the Finnish/Swedish chemist, Johan Gadolin. Gadoliniite was a resinous heavy black mineral that had first been encountered at a feldspar quarry (pegmatite) in Ytterby, near Stockholm, Sweden, and was first collected there by a Lieutenant Arrhenius, in 1787. This quarry would gain everlasting fame by lending its name to no fewer than four elements of the periodic table; yttrium was the first. There was an early attempt to name the new "earth" "ytterbia", but the simplified name of "yttria" won out, although the "ytterbia" name would later be resurrected for the oxide of element #70. Although there were early suspicions that the new earth might not be homogeneous, that point was not definitely proven until Mosander's investigations, that were reported in the early 1840s. Mosander succeeded in preparing a white fraction (comprising the majority of the mixture) that retained the yttria name, and two smaller fractions that were also named for the Ytterby quarry: "terbia" and "erbia". These two fractions had to await the development of spectroscopic analysis to progress further towards their purified components. It is now known that yttrium is invariably accompanied geochemically by the heavy lanthanides (which as a result are often known as the "yttrium earths" or the "yttrium group"). Yttria is typically about two-thirds of the mixture by weight.

Occurrence

Due to the "lanthanide contraction", ytrrium, which is trivalent, is of similar ionic size to dysprosium (element #66), and its lanthanide neighbors. Due to the relatively gradual decrease in ionic size with increasing atomic number, the rare earth elements have always been notoriously difficult to separate. Even with eons of geological time, geochemical separation of the lanthanides has only rarely progressed much farther than a broad separation between light versus heavy lanthanides, otherwise known as the cerium and yttrium earths. This geochmical divide is reflected in the first two rare earths that were discovered, yttria in 1794 and ceria in 1803. As originally found, each comprised the entire mixture of the associated earths. Rare earth minerals, as found, usually are dominated by one group or the other, depending upon which size-range best fits the structural lattice. Thus, among the anhydrous rare earth phosphates, it is the tetragonal mineral xenotime that incorporates yttrium and the yttrium earths, whereas the monoclinic monazite phase incorporates cerium and the cerium earths preferentially. The smaller size of the yttrium group allows it a greater solid solubility in the rock-forming minerals that comprise the earth's mantle, and thus yttrium and the yttrium earths show less enrichment in the earth's crust, relative to chondritic abundance, than does cerium and the cerium earths. This has economic consequences: large orebodies of the cerium earths are known around the world, and are being actively exploited. Corresponding orebodies for yttrium tend to be rarer, smaller, and less concentrated. Most of the current supply of yttrium originates in the "ion adsorption clay" ores of Southern China. Some versions of these provide concentrates containing about 65% yttrium oxide, with the heavy lanthanides being present in ratios reflecting the Oddo-Harkins rule: even-numbered heavy lanthanides at abundances of about 5% each, and odd-numbered lanthanides at abundances of about 1% each. Similar compositions are found in xenotime or gadolinite. Well-known minerals that contain yttrium include gadolinite, xenotime, samarskite, euxenite, fergusonite, yttrotantalite, yttrotungstite, yttrofluorite (a variety of fluorite), thalenite, yttrialite. Small amounts occur in zircon, which derives its typical yellow fluorescence from some of the accompanying heavy lanthanides. The zirconium mineral eudialyte, such as is found in southern Greenland, also contains small but potentially useful amounts of yttrium. Of the above yttrium minerals, most played a part in providing research quantities of lanthanides during the discovery days. Xenotime is occasionally recovered as a byproduct of heavy sand processing, but has never been nearly as abundsnt as the similarly recovered monazite (which typically contains a few percent of yttrium). Uranium ores processed in Ontario have occasionally yielded yttrium as a byproduct.

Precautions

Compounds that contain this element are rarely encountered by most people but should be considered to be toxic even though many compounds pose little risk. Yttrium salts may be carcinogenic. This element is not normally found in human tissue and plays no known biological role.

See also

• Yttrium compounds
• Erbium
• Terbium
• Ytterbium

External links

• WebElements.com – Yttrium
• Los Alamos National Laboratory – Yttrium