Gadolinium – The Coldest Metal On Earth
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(PrtSc): Thoisoi2 – Chemical Experiments!
The metal is extracted from minerals containing practically all rare-earth metals – from monazite. Watch the above video from Thoisoi2 – Chemical Experiments for more info about Gadolinium.
The final stage of extracting metallic gadolinium is heating up its oxide with calcium and later distillating it. This metal is not that expensive.Do not repeat the experiments shown in this video!
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Gadolinium is a silvery-white malleable and ductile rare earth metal.It crystallizes in the hexagonal close-packed α-form at room temperature, but, when heated to temperatures above 1235 °C, it transforms into its β-form, which has a body-centered cubic structure.
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