Four out of ten extremely rare substances of the planet have been found in this village and therefore it is not shy to say that this is the “capital” of rare substances.
In the periodic table, there are ten substances namely Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium, Gadolinium, Thulium, Scandium, Holmium, Dysprosium, Lutetium all possessing a common characteristic.
That is, they were all found from a single rock ore sample unearthed in an old metal mine in a small village called Ytterby on the island of Resarö (Sweden).
All of these chemicals are very rare and extremely difficult to extract. It took scientists and chemists decades to discover and study all of them. Of these, at least four elements have been named after the villages Yttrium (Y), Erbium (Er), Terbium (Tb), and Ytterbium (Yb).
On the Swedish island of Resarö, the humble village of Ytterby possesses an astonishing amount of rare substances.
History first registered the tiny Swedish village of Ytterby in 1787, when an army lieutenant and chemist Carl Axel Arrhenius discovered an unusually heavy black ore sample in an old quarry. near the village.
Arrenhus named this ore sample Ytterbite and sent it to many other chemists for analysis, in the hope that it was a newly discovered material similar to tungsten.
Johan Gadolin, a Finnish chemist at the University of Åbo, identified the first rare element from Arrhenius’ rock samples in 1789. The element has been called Yttrium (Y). Over the next 100 years, nine more elements were found from each of these rock samples.
In 1843 Carl Gustav Mosander discovered that Ytterbite was actually a mixture of three metal oxides. From there, two new elements were extracted – Terbium (Tb) and Erbium (Er) – both named after the village of Ytterby where they were found.
By 1878, a fourth form of metal oxide was discovered by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, from which the pure element Ytterbium (Yb) was separated.
Gradually, filtration techniques improved, new elements continued to be found among the four oxides above, bringing the total number of elements extracted from the Ytterbite rock sample to ten.
The Ytterby Mine, where rock samples were excavated, now has only one plate left to record history.
Interestingly, one of these elements, Gadolinium (Gd) was named after Johan Gadolin. Even the rock sample itself was renamed from Ytterbite to Gadolinite to honor the scientist’s merits.
The ore mine where the rock sample was mined was actually a feldspar mine , but was closed long ago, and is now covered with weeds. Only a small plaque on a rock near the mine left traces of the discovery.
The discovery was of great significance, and even some of the streets in the village were named after the elements found here.
Yttrium (Y), the first rare earth element discovered by Johan Gadolin, has been widely used in LEDs and phosphors, typically the red phosphorus in cathode tubes used to project images inside. television head.
Yttrium is also used to manufacture electrodes, electrolytes, electronic filters, lasers, superconductors, and many other medical applications.
A path named after the substance Terbium found in the legendary rock specimen.
Terbim (Tb) is used for semiconductors to produce semiconductor electronic devices such as memory cards, switches… but most of the world’s supply of this substance is used in the production of blue phosphorus. available on the TV screen.
Terbium is also used in fluorescent lamps, and in the actuators of submarine detection systems or sensors.
Erbium (Er) has many optical applications, such as the manufacture of lasers and image amplification devices. Erbium lasers have a low penetration allowing them to be used in the dental and skin care industry, where only the skin and outer surfaces of the teeth are treated.
Ytterbium (Yb) is used mainly as a stimulant in stainless steel, but its most interesting application is in atomic clocks. Ytterbium clocks have an error of less than 2 parts per trillion, which is said to be more accurate than cesium atomic clocks, which are commonly used to measure clock seconds.
With such significance, the small village of Ytterby has become the only place on the planet that possesses the largest number of substances in the periodic table. Perhaps because of that, some people have compared it to the favorite place of chemists.