All practice pages/Interatomic theory/Elements
Element 60, a lanthanide
The element in the strongest permanent magnets ever made, from earbuds to electric car motors.
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 Nd³⁺ ion in most of its compounds.
Found with the other light rare earths in bastnäsite and monazite, mostly mined and refined in China.
Carl Auer von Welsbach separated it from didymium in 1885, along with praseodymium, and named it from the Greek neos, new, and didymos, twin.
Neodymium-iron-boron magnets, invented in the early 1980s, are the strongest permanent magnets. They run electric car motors, wind turbines, hard drives, speakers, headphones and phone vibration motors. Neodymium also makes Nd:YAG lasers and gives glass a purple color.
Neodymium magnets snap together hard enough to pinch skin badly and shatter, and swallowing two or more can be life-threatening.