Atomic Symbol: Yb
Atomic Number: 70
Atomic Weight: 173.054(5)
Isotopes and Abundances: 168Yb 0.13 %, 170Yb 3.04 %, 171Yb 14.28 %, 172Yb 21.83 %, 173Yb 16.13 %, 174Yb 31.83 %, 176Yb 12.76 %
1 Atm Melting Point: 824 °C
1 Atm Boiling Point: 1196 °C
Common Valences: 3+, 2+
Ionic Radii: (3+) 4-fold 86.8 pm, 6-fold 92.5 pm, 8-fold 98.5 pm, (2+) 6-fold 108 pm, 8-fold 114 pm
Pauling Electronegativity: 1.1
First Ionization Energy: 603.435 kJ/mol
Chondritic (CI) Abundance: 161 ppb
Silicate Earth Abundance: 441 ppb
Crustal Abundance: 1.9 ppm
Seawater Abundance: ~0.17–1.2 ng/kg
Core Abundance: ~0
Properties
Ytterbium is a silvery-white metal, with a slight yellowish tinge (see Figure 1). Ytterbium is a lithophile element (McDonough and Sun, 1995). It is soft, malleable, and quite ductile. It is slowly oxidized by air. However, this oxide layer forms a protective layer on the surface, preventing complete oxidation (Emsley, 2011; Hammond, 2016).
Ytterbium, pieces...
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References
Boynton, W. V., 1975. Fractionation in the solar nebula: condensation of yttrium and the rare earth elements. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 39(5), 569–584.
Emsley, J., 2011. Nature’s Building Blocks. An A-Z Guide of the Elements. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kindom, pp. 614–616.
Hammond, C. R., 2016. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 96th Edition, 2015 – 2016. CRC Press. (Electronic edition), Boca Raton, FL, United States.
Marignac, J. C. G., 1878. Sur l’ytterbine, nouvelle terre contenue dans la gadolinite. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, LXXXVII, 578–581.
McDonough, W. F., and Sun, S. S., 1995. The composition of the Earth. Chemical Geology, 120, 223–253.
Mori, Y., and Kobayashi, S., 2012. Organic synthesis. In Atwood, D. A. (ed.), The Rare Earth Elements: Fundamentals and Applications. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, United States, pp. 452–453.
NIST, 2013. Ytterbium Atomic Clocks Set Record for Stability. http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/clock-082213.cfm. Accessed Mar 2016.
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Voncken, J.H.L. (2016). Ytterbium. In: White, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_144-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39193-9_144-2
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