There are several different processes of preparing the individual rare-earth metals, depending upon the given metal’s melting and boiling points (see below Properties of the metals) and the required purity of the metal for a given application. For high-purity metals (99 percent or better), the calciothermic and electrolytic processes are used for the low-melting lanthanides (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, and neodymium), the calciothermic process for the high-melting metals (scandium, yttrium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, and lutetium, and another process (the so-called lanthanothermic process) for high-vapour-pressure metals (samarium, europium, thulium, and ytterbium). All three methods are used to prepare commercial-grade metals ...(100 of 11935 words)
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