An Unlikely Use For A Rare Earth Metal

Rare Earth Metals' central role in the production of clean energy technology

, such as the hybrid/electric car, in modern electrical and electronic communications equipment and in various industrial processes has become well known.

Now a new and somewhat unusual use for one Rare Earth Element has been revealed and it came about by accident when an American scientist dropped a magnet into pool full of sharks.

According to the story, revealed by the BBC, Eric Stroud was studying the behaviour of sharks after collecting some in pools he had set up in the basement of his New Jersey home in the hopes of developing an effective shark repellent.

When the magnet fell into the water Mr Stroud noticed that the sharks in the pool immediately darted away from it appearing very distressed.

Further experiments confirmed the effect and after testing various metals he found that while some did not work, some REEs were extremely effective and that they interfered with the sharks' electrical sensors.

One of the most effective probed to be Neodymium and this gave him the idea of coating fishing hooks with the metals to magnetise the hooks and tests in several countries have confirmed a 60-70% reduction in the number of sharks caught earning Stroud an award from the World Wildlife Fund for his invention.

Neodymium is more usually associated with the production of Super magnets, the most powerful permanent magnets known. Such magnets are widely used in such products as microphones, professional loudspeakers, in-ear headphones, and computer hard disks, but the metal also has other uses. Larger neodymium magnets are used in high power versus weight electric motors in hybrid cars and generators for aircraft and wind turbine electric generators.

Compounds containing the metal were first commercially used as glass dyes in 1927, and they remain a popular additive in glasses. The colour of the compounds is often a reddish-purple but it changes with the type of lighting, due to fluorescent effects. The first experiment with this technique was conducted by Leo Moser in November 1927 and the resulting "Alexandrite" glass is still a signature color of the Moser glassworks.

Austrian businessman and chemist Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach. Was the first to isolate Neodymium from Didymium. Magnets made of Neodymium-Boron alloy are the strongest in the world and two of these magnets can attract each other from a distance of almost half a meter.

The magnets were also adopted in the jewellery industry for use as an alternative method of fixing earrings in place when the wearer wanted something secure but did not want to have their ears pierced.

Although it is not a particularly rare element it is not found in a pure form but has to be extracted from other ores and China is responsible for producing approximately 97% of the material although Australia also produces some.

Copyright (c) 2012 Alison Withers

by: Alison Withers

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