Today I would like to tell you about such an unusual metal as gadolinium. Gadolinium belongs to the lanthanides series in the periodic table following europium. Gadolinium looks like an ordinary metal of gray color and it has distinctive crystalline structure because of its purity.
source/image: Thoisoi2 – Chemical Experiments!
Gadolinium is a chemical element with the symbol Gd and atomic number 64. Gadolinium is a silvery-white metal when oxidation is removed. It is only slightly malleable and is a ductile rare-earth element.Gadolinium was discovered in 1880 by Jean Charles de Marignac, who detected its oxide by using spectroscopy.
Gadolinium is believed to be ferromagnetic at temperatures below 20 °C (68 °F)[7] and is strongly paramagnetic above this temperature. There is evidence that gadolinium is a helical antiferromagnetic, rather than a ferromagnetic, below 20 °C (68 °F).Gadolinium is the eighth member of the lanthanide series. In the periodic table, it appears between the elements europium to its left and terbium to its right, and above the actinide curium.
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It is a silvery-white, malleable, ductile rare-earth element.The metal is extracted from minerals containing practically all rare-earth metals – from monazite. The final stage of extracting metallic gadolinium is heating up its oxide with calcium and later distillating it. This metal is not that expensive./source
