Terbium
Terbium is a soft, malleable, ductile, silver-gray metal member of
the lanthanide group of the periodic
table. It is reasonably stable in air, but it is slowly oxidised and
it reacts with cold water.
Applications
Terbium is rare and expensive, so it has few commercial uses. Some
minor uses are in lasers, semiconductor devices, and phosphorous in
colour television tubes. It is also used in solid-state devices, as
stabilizer of fuel cells which operate at high temperature.
Terbium in the environment
Terbium is one of the rarer rare-earth elements, although is twice as
common in the Earth's crust as silver. It is
never found in nature as free element, but is is contained in many
minerals. The most important ore are monazite, bastnasite and cerite.
The main mining areas are China, USA, India, Sri Lanka, Brazil and
Australia and reserves fo terbium are estimated to be around 300.000
tonnes. World production is 10 tonnes a year.
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Terbium has no bilogical role, it may be
mildly toxic by ingestion. Terbium powder and compound are very
irritating if they come into contact with the skin and the eyes.
Its toxicity has not been investigated in detail.
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Terbium poses no environmental threat to
plants or animals.
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Sources
of periodic table.
Back to the
periodic table of elements.
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