 Discovery Information
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| Who: Jean de Marignac |
| When: 1878 |
| Where: Switzerland |
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| Name Origin
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| From Ytterby, Sweden. |
| "Ytterbium" in different languages. |
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| Sources
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| Found in minerals such as yttria (Y2O3), monazite, gadolinite ((Ce,La,Nd,Y)2FeBe2Si2O10), and xenotime. Natural ytterbium is a mix of seven stable isotopes.
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| Important producers are the USA, Canada, Greenland and Brazil. Annual production is around 50 tons.
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| Abundance
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| Universe: 0.002 ppm (by weight) |
| Sun: 0.001 ppm (by weight) |
| Carbonaceous meteorite: 0.18 ppm |
| Earth's Crust: 3.3 ppm |
| Seawater: |
| Atlantic surface: 5 x 10-7 ppm
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| Atlantic deep: 7.5 x 10-7 ppm
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| Pacific surface: 3.7 x 10-7 ppm
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| Pacific deep: 2.2 x 10-6 ppm
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| Uses
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| Used in metallurgical and chemical experiments. |
| One ytterbium isotope has been used as a radiation source substitute for a portable X-ray machine when electricity was not available.
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| Ytterbium has a single absorption band at 985 nanometers, which is used to convert infrared energy into electricity in solar
cells.
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| History
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| Ytterbium was discovered by the Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac in 1878. Marignac found a new component in the earth then known as erbia and named it ytterbia (after Ytterby, the Swedish
town where he found the new erbia component). He suspected that ytterbia was a compound of a new element he called ytterbium.
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| In 1907, the French chemist Georges Urbain separated Marignac's ytterbia into two components, neoytterbia and lutecia. Neoytterbia would later become known as the element
ytterbium and lutecia would later be known as the element lutetium. Auer von Welsbach independently isolated these elements
from ytterbia at about the same time but called them aldebaranium and cassiopeium.
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| Notes
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| The chemical and physical properties of ytterbium could not be determined until 1953 when the first nearly pure ytterbium
was produced
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| Hazards
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| Although it was thought that all ytterbium compounds were highly toxic, initial studies have shown that the danger is limited. Ytterbium compounds are known to cause skin and eye irritations, and may also be teratogenic. Metallic ytterbium dust poses a fire and explosion hazard.
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