There are many in the periodic table chemical elements which are named after geographical names. They can be divided into obvious or non-obvious. Obvious geographical names of chemical elements, as can be seen from the name, directly point to toponyms, among them, for example, americium. More interesting is the second group, which includes geographical names of chemical elements that are not obvious to the Russian-speaking reader, as an example, ruthenium can be given - from lat. Russia. So, let's consider all these elements separately.

1. Europium named after Europe was opened French chemist Eugène Demarce, who received it in 1901 and gave it its name.
2. Americium was obtained artificially in 1944 at the Metallurgical Laboratory University of Chicago Glenn Seaborg with staff. External electron shell new element (5f) turned out to be similar to europium (4f). Therefore, the element was named after America, as europium is named after Europe.
3. Beryllium so named after the mineral beryl, which in turn derives its name from the Indian city of Belur. In India, there are many deposits of emeralds, which are a variety of beryl. It is curious that initially beryllium was called "glycium" (from the Greek glycos - sweet), because. it has a sweet aftertaste.
4. Berkelium got its name from the city of Berkeley, it was there that this radioactive element was obtained in 1949.
5. Gallium comes from the Latin Gallia - France. The existence of gallium was scientifically predicted by D. I. Mendeleev. The discovery of gallium strengthened the position Periodic Law, clearly demonstrating the possibility of predicting the discovery of new chemical elements. Gallium was discovered by the French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875.
6. Hafnium named after Copenhagen, where it was opened. Translated from the Latin Hafnia - Copenhagen.
7. Germanium the element was named after the birthplace of the scientist Clemens Winkler, who discovered the element, Germany
8. Holmium got its name from old name Stockholm - Holmia. It was there that a mineral was found, from which a new chemical element was isolated in 1879.
9. Darmstadt- comes from the German "science city" Darmstadt, in which this element was synthesized in 1994.
10. Dubnium. And this is the Russian "science city" of physicists and chemists - suburban city Dubna. Dubnium was obtained in this city in 1970. Soviet scientists proposed the name of the new element nilsborium, in honor of Niels Bohr. Names such as ganium and joliotium have also been suggested. However, in 1997 this chemical element received official name Dubnium.
11. Yttrium
12. Ytterbium
13. Teriy
14. Erbium. All of the above 4 chemical elements were found in a mineral from a quarry near the village of Ytterby on the island of Resarö near Stockholm and therefore got their name in honor of this settlement.
15. Californium leads the name from the state of California in the USA, received in 1950 in Berkeley, which is located in California.
16. Livermorium named after the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California, USA), in which this chemical element was first synthesized.
17. Lutetium. Paris was previously called Lutetia, the chemical element was discovered in 1907 by the French chemist J. Urbain.
18. Magnesium. The Latin name for the element magnesium Magnesium comes from the name ancient city Magnesia in Asia Minor, in the vicinity of which there are deposits of the mineral magnesite.
19. Manganese in ancient times it was known as "black magnesia". AT early XIX century, the name "manganum" was adopted for it (from the German Manganerz - manganese ore).
20. Polonium named after the birthplace of the outstanding scientist Maria Skłodowska-Curie of Poland.
21. Rhenium opened in 1925 German chemists Ida and Walter Noddack. The element takes its name from the Rhine province in Germany where Ida Noddack was from.
22. Ruthenium was discovered by Kazan University professor Karl Klaus in 1844, who named ruthenium in honor of Russia (Ruthenia is the Latin name for Rus/Russia)
23. Scandium it's nothing but Scandinavia, an element in 1879 Swedish chemist Lars Nilson.
24. Strontium was discovered in the mineral strontianite, found in 1764 in a lead mine near the Scottish village of Strontian, which later gave the name to the new element.
25. Thulium was so named by the Swedish chemist P. T. Kleve gave it the name in honor of the mythical island of Thule located in the north of Europe
26. France was discovered in 1939 by Marguerite Perey, an employee of the Radium Institute in Paris. She also gave him a name in honor of her homeland - France.
27. Hassius was first obtained in 1984 at the Center for Heavy Ion Research (Darmstadt, Germany). Got its name from the name federal state Hesse; Hassia is the Latin name of the Principality, and then the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, in which this scientific Center is located.
28. Copper. Russian word does not have a clearly defined etymology, but the Latin name for this metal Cuprum goes back to the ancient name of the island of Cyprus (Aes cuprium, Aes cyprium), which has very rich copper deposits.

As we can see, there are many chemical elements that got their name from geographical names. But from the name of a chemical element, only one name migrated to geography - Argentina, which got its name from the Latin word Argentum, which means silver.
In addition to the fact that geographical names received chemical elements, names were also borrowed from geography to designate chemical substances and minerals.

Geographic names of chemicals and minerals

1. Veronal got its name from Italian city Verona. Veronal, also known as barbital, is a hypnotic drug, considered a psychotropic substance.
2. Cologne- "Cologne water" or in French eau de Cologne. The cologne recipe was created by Italian perfumer Johann Maria Farina in Cologne, Germany. Initially, the composition of the cologne included alcohol, oils of mandarin, grapefruit, orange, as well as oil essences of herbs and cedar. The manufactory, founded by him back in 1709, still operates today and is the oldest in the world. Cologne is essentially nothing more than perfume. In Napoleonic times, perfumery was considered medicine and when, in 1810, the emperor ordered the disclosure of the compositions of all medicines, the owners of the perfume factory had to go to the trick. They added three additional component: bergamot, neroli and lemon and called the whole thing "Cologne". So the recipe for the famous perfume remained a secret. But our contemporaries unraveled this recipe. Try to make cologne yourself, perfumery with your own hands is a very simple matter!
3. Semiprecious stone topaz got its name from the place of its first discovery. It was first discovered on the island of Topazios (Topazio). The island is located in the Red Sea in southern Egypt and is currently called St. John's. Ural miners called topaz "heavyweight", because. the mineral is very hard.
4. Valuable construction material alabaster got its name from the name of the city of Basra in Iraq. Translated from Arabic word"al-basra" means "soft" and is associated with the characteristics of the local soil. Other names for alabaster are gypsum, and the chemical name is calcium diquasulfate.

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Thulium (lat. Thulium) - a chemical element secondary subgroup the third group of the sixth period of the periodic system of chemical elements. Denoted by the symbol Tm, atomic number - 69, belongs to the group of lanthanides. The simple substance thulium (CAS number 7440-30-4) is an easily processed metal with a silvery white color.

Story

Thulium was discovered by the Swedish chemist P. T. Kleve in 1879 while looking for impurities in erbium oxide Er 2 O 3 . The same method had previously enabled C. G. Mosander to discover other rare earth elements. When impurities were isolated, Kleve obtained two oxides - brown holmium oxide and green thulium oxide. In 1911, T. W. Richards received the element in pure form and measured its atomic weight.
Having isolated the oxide of an unknown element, P. T. Kleve gave it the name Thulium in honor of the legendary island of Thule located in the north of Europe (ancient Greek Θούλη, lat. Thule), ancient name Scandinavia.

Receipt

Thulium metal is obtained by metallothermic reduction of TmF 3 using calcium: 2TmF 3 + 3Ca = 3CaF 2 + 2Tm

Distribution in nature

thulium is rare element, its content in earth's crust 2.7 × 10 -5 wt. %, in sea ​​water- 10 -7 mg/liter. Along with other rare earth elements, thulium is present in minerals such as xenotime, euxenite, monazite, loparite, and some others.

It is easy to process and has a silvery-white color. Despite its rarity and high price, thulium is used in advanced solid-state lasers and as a radioisotope in portable x-ray machines.

1. History

Thulium was discovered by the Swedish chemist Per Theodor Cleve as an admixture to the oxides of other rare earth elements (the method proposed by Carl Gustav Mozander to search for and isolate new rare earth elements was used). Kleve separated all known impurities from erbium, the "earth" (oxide) element (23). After additional procedures, Kleve isolated two new substances: one Brown, another green. Brown was the earth, which Kleve proposed to call "holmium" and which corresponds to the element holmium, while green earth he called "Tullia" and new element Thule in honor of Thule, Latin name Scandinavia.

Tullium was so rare that one of early explorers there was not enough of it to be able to clean it enough to see green color compounds, they had to rejoice, if only because the characteristic spectral lines of thulium were enhanced when erbium was gradually removed from the sample. The first researcher to obtain reasonably pure thulium (thulium oxide) was Charles James, of Durham College, New Hampshire. In 1911 he reported that fractional crystallization of bromate allowed him to isolate pure material. He carried out 15,000 crystallization "operations" to establish the homogeneity of his material.

thulium oxide high purity first became commercially available in the late 1950s, as a result of improvements in ion-exchange separation technologies. The Lindsay Chemical Division of American Potash & Chemical Corporation offered grades of 99% and 99.9% purity. The price per kilogram fluctuated between US$4,600 and US$13,300 from to for a 99.9% pure drug, it was the most high price to the lanthanides after lutetium.

2. Prevalence and production

This element is never found in nature in a free state, but it is found in large quantities in minerals with other rare earth elements. Its content in the earth's crust is 0.5 mg/kg. Thulium is mainly mined from monazite (~0.007% thulium), an ore found in some sands, using ion exchange technologies. New ion-exchange and organic solvent extraction technologies have made it possible to isolate thulium more efficiently and more easily, reducing the cost of extracting it. The main source of thulium today is clay deposits southern China. In such minerals, where yttrium makes up 2/3 of the total rare earth component of the ore, there is only 0.5% thulium. After isolation, the metal can be isolated by reduction of its oxide with lanthanum or calcium in a closed reactor at high temperatures. According to another method, thulium is reduced from fluoride by metallothermic calcium:
2TmF 3 + 3Ca = 3CaF 2 + 2Tm

3. Chemical properties

Thulium slowly, and at high temperature actively reacts with atmospheric oxygen to form thulium (III) oxide:

4 Tm + 3 O 2 → 2 Tm 2 O 3

Reacts slowly with water, but the reaction is accelerated by heating to form hydroxide:

2 Tm + 6 H 2 O → 2 Tm (OH) 3 + 3 H 2 2 Tm + 3 F 2 → 2 TmF 3 [white salt] 2 Tm + 3 Cl 2 → 2 TmCl 3 [salt yellow color] 2 Tm + 3 Br 2 → 2 TmBr 3 [white salt] 2 Tm + 3 I 2 → 2 TmI 3 [yellow salt]

4.2. X-ray sources

Despite its high cost, in portable x-ray machines, thulium, which was irradiated with neutrons in a nuclear reactor, is used as a radiation source. These sources have been active for approximately one year as a tool in mobile medical and dental units, as well as to detect defects in hard-to-reach mechanical and electronic components. Such sources do not require serious radiation protection- a small coating of lead is sufficient.

5. Biological role and warnings

The biological role of thulium is not known, although it has been noted to somewhat stimulate metabolism. Soluble salts thulium is slightly toxic if introduced into the body in large quantities, but the insoluble salts are non-toxic. Thulium is not absorbed by the roots of plants, and therefore does not get into food chain person. Vegetables typically contain only one milligram of thulium per tonne of dry weight.)

Literature

• Glossary of terms in chemistry / / J. Opeida, O. Schweika. Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry and Coal Chemistry named after L.M. Litvinenko NAS of Ukraine, Donetsk National University- Donetsk: "Weber", 2008. - 758 p. ISBN 978-966-335-206-0

(Thulium; from the Latin name of Scandinavia - Thule), Tm - a chemical element of group III periodic system elements; at. n. 69, at. m. 168.9342; belongs to the rare earth elements. Light gray metal. In compounds, it exhibits an oxidation state of +3 (>3). Known since mass numbers from 165 to 175. Of them practical value has an isotope of 170Tm. Thulium was discovered (1879) by the Swede, chemist P. Kleve.

Metal thulium was first obtained by Amer. scientists F. Spedding and A. Daan. The content of thulium in the earth's crust is 8·10 -5%. Euxenite is also the main mineral for obtaining thulium. Crystal cell thulium hexagonal close-packed magnesium type, with periods a = 3.5374 A and c = 5.558 A. Density (t-ra 25 ° C) 9.314 g / cm3; mp1545°С; bp 1727°С; thermal expansion coefficient 13.3-10-6 degrees; heat capacity 6.46 cal/g atom deg; electrical resistance 90 microcm-cm; point 22 K; work function of electrons 3.12 eV. Modulus of norms, elasticity 7710 kgf/mm2; shear modulus 3100 kgf/mm2; coefficient Poisson 0.235; HB = 55 (metal 99.0%).

Thulium is easily machined. chemically active. It oxidizes strongly in air. It also forms connections with many others. elements. Thulium is obtained by metallothermic reduction of oxides with lanthanum at a temperature of 1000-1500 ° C. To obtain pure metal, thulium is distilled. Thulium is produced in the form of small ingots. The 170Тm isotope finds application in portable X-ray translucent devices.

Lit .: Gerasimovsky V. I. Geochemistry of rare earth elements. In: Rare earth elements (Obtaining, analysis, application).

Article on the topic Thulium chemical element

Thule - so in the days of the Roman Empire they called Scandinavia, the north of Europe. Thulium is the name of an element discovered by Kleve in 1879. First, Kleve found new spectral lines, and then was the first to isolate the pale green oxide of element No. 69 from gadolinite.

Distribution of thulium

According to Academician A.P. Vinogradov, thulium is the rarest (except for promethium) of all rare earth elements. Its content in the earth's crust is 8 * 10 -5%. In terms of refractoriness, thulium is the second among the lanthanides.: its melting point is 1550-1600 ° C (in reference books are different sizes; This is apparently due to the unequal purity of the samples). It is second only to lutetium in terms of boiling point.
Despite the minimal prevalence, thulium found practical use earlier than many of the more common lanthanides. It is known, for example, that thulium microimpurities are introduced into semiconductor materials (in particular, into gallium arsenide) and materials for lasers. But, oddly enough, more important than the natural stable thulium (16STm isotope) for us turned out to be radioactive thulium-170.
Thulium-170 is formed in nuclear reactors by neutron irradiation of natural thulium. This isotope, with a half-life of 129 days, emits relatively soft gamma rays with an energy of 84 KeV (hard energy). gamma radiation measured not in kiloelectronvolts, but in MeVs - in millions of electronvolts).

On the basis of this isotope, compact X-ray transmission installations were created, which have a lot of advantages over conventional X-ray machines. Unlike them, thulium devices do not need power supply, they are much more compact, lighter, and simpler in design. Miniature thulium devices are suitable for x-ray diagnostics in those tissues and organs that are difficult, and sometimes impossible, to be seen through conventional x-ray machines.
Thulium gamma rays shine through not only living tissues, but also metal. Thulium gamma flaw detectors are very convenient for scanning thin-walled parts and welds. When working with samples with a thickness of not more than 6 mm, these flaw detectors are the most sensitive. With the help of thulium-170, completely imperceptible writing and symbolic signs were discovered on the bronze lining of the Assyrian helmet of the 9th century. BC e. The helmet was wrapped in photographic film and began to shine through from the inside with soft gamma rays of thulium. Signs erased by time appeared on the developed film...
In addition to flaw detectors, thulium-170 preparations are used in devices called turbidity meters. By scattering gamma rays, these devices determine the amount of suspended particles in a liquid.
Thulium devices are characterized by compactness, reliability, and speed. Their only drawback is the relatively short half-life of thulium-170. But here, as they say, there's nothing to be done.
Thulium gamma sources become cheaper as their production increases. Back in 1961, five types of thulium sources were produced in our country, and they cost from 5.5 to 250 rubles. And a kilogram of metallic stable thulium at the same time cost more than 25 thousand rubles.
A new, more advanced technology for the production of lanthanides made it possible to recent times significantly reduce their prices. In 1970, the price of thulium was already 13 thousand rubles per kilogram. But, and having become almost half the price, it still remains the rarest and most expensive of all. lanthanides.