All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 66, a lanthanide
Named hard to get at after years of separation work, it now keeps electric car magnets strong when they heat up.
Period 6, in the lanthanide row set below the main table. The other lanthanides are tinted, and every cell opens its own article.
Like the other lanthanides, it gives up three electrons to form the Dy³⁺ ion in most of its compounds.
Found in xenotime and in the ion-adsorption clays of southern China, which supply most of the world.
Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran separated it from holmium in 1886 after dozens of painstaking attempts, and named it from the Greek dysprositos, hard to get at. Pure dysprosium metal was not made until the 1950s, when ion-exchange methods arrived.
Small amounts in neodymium magnets stop them from losing strength when hot, which makes dysprosium vital for electric car motors and wind turbines. It also goes into Terfenol-D, metal-halide lamps and nuclear reactor control rods.