A team of researchers from Université Clermont Auvergne, working with a colleague from Universität Bayreuth, has found evidence that suggests the Earth's composition changed over time during its early years via collisional ...
There is a conundrum around rare earth elements (REE). They play a key role in clean energy, as they are vital to the production of lightweight, efficient batteries and essential components in wind turbines. Conversely, conventional ...
Materials Science
Aug 10, 2023
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What do corncobs and tomato peels have to do with electronics? They both can be used to salvage valuable rare earth elements, like neodymium, from electronic waste. Penn State researchers used micro- and nanoparticles created ...
Nanomaterials
Aug 19, 2022
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Manufacturers rely on rare earth elements, like neodymium, to create strong magnets used in motors for electronics including hybrid cars, aircraft generators, loudspeakers, hard drives and in-ear headphones. But mineral deposits ...
Nanomaterials
Nov 24, 2021
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The strongest permanent magnets today contain a mix of the elements neodymium and iron. However, neodymium on its own does not behave like any known magnet, confounding researchers for more than a half-century. Physicists ...
Quantum Physics
May 28, 2020
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By doping alumina crystals with neodymium ions, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new laser material that is capable of emitting ultra-short, high-power pulses—a combination that could ...
Materials Science
Jul 18, 2018
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have developed a new, more efficient permanent magnet that removes the deficiencies of conventional samarium and neodymium magnets.
Condensed Matter
Oct 10, 2017
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Despite their ubiquity in consumer electronics, rare-earth metals are, as their name suggests, hard to come by. Mining and purifying them is an expensive, labor-intensive and ecologically devastating process.
Materials Science
Jun 18, 2015
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Rare-earth metals are critical components of electronic materials and permanent magnets. Recycling of consumer products is a promising source for these rare commodities. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, American scientists ...
Materials Science
Jun 9, 2015
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(Phys.org)—Rocks dating back 3.4 billion years from south-west Greenland's Isua mountain range have yielded valuable information about the structure of the Earth during its earliest stages of development. In these rocks, ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 9, 2012
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Neodymium ( /ˌniːɵˈdɪmiəm/ nee-o-dim-ee-əm) is a chemical element with the symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is a soft silvery metal that tarnishes in air. Neodymium was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach. It is present in significant quantities in the ore minerals monazite and bastnäsite. Neodymium is not found naturally in metallic form or unmixed with other lanthanides, and it is usually refined for general use. Although neodymium is classed as a "rare earth", it is no rarer than cobalt, nickel, and copper ore, and is widely distributed in the Earth's crust. Most of the world's neodymium is mined in China.
Neodymium compounds were first commercially used as glass dyes in 1927, and they remain a popular additive in glasses. The color of neodymium compounds—due to the Nd(III) ion—is often a reddish-purple but it changes with the type of lighting, due to fluorescent effects. Some neodymium-doped glasses are also used in lasers that emit infrared light with wavelengths between 1047 and 1062 nanometers. These have been used in extremely high power applications, such as experiments in inertial confinement fusion.
Neodymium is also used with various other substrate crystals, such as yttrium aluminum garnet in the Nd:YAG laser. This laser usually emits infrared waves at a wavelength of about 1064 nanometers. The Nd:YAG laser is one of the most commonly used solid-state lasers.
Another chief use of neodymium is as the free pure element. It is used as a component in the alloys used to make high-strength neodymium magnets – the most powerful permanent magnets known. These magnets are widely used in such products as microphones, professional loudspeakers, in-ear headphones, and computer hard disks, where low magnet mass or volume, or strong magnetic fields are required. Larger neodymium magnets are used in high power versus weight electric motors (for example in hybrid cars) and generators (for example aircraft and wind turbine electric generators).
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