Introduction: A Brief History of f Element Separations

Abstract

In 1787, C. A. Arrhenius found a black mineral near Ytterby, north of Stockholm. He named it yttria. Subsequent studies of yttria led to the isolation and identification of yttrium (1794). By 1907 all the lanthanides except element 61 had been discovered. The final lanthanide was produced in nuclear fission and identified in 1947. A major problem over the intervening 160 years was the extreme difficulty of separating these elements of almost identical chemical properties. However, the development of separation procedures based on cation exchange resins using aminopolycarboxylate eluent solutions resulted in isolation of macro quantities of high purity lanthanides. The subsequent development of separation methods of the 4f elements has continued to be an exciting and successful area of separation science since the 1950’s.