Atomic Symbol: Ce
Atomic Number: 58
Atomic Weight: 140.115 g/mol
Isotopes and Abundances: 136Ce 0.186%, 138Ce 0.251%, 140Ce 88.449%, and 142Ce 11.114%
1 Atm Melting Point: 795 °C
1 Atm Boiling Point: 3443 °C
Common Valences: +3 and +4
Ionic Radii: 3+: 101 pm, 4+: 87 pm
Pauling Electronegativity: 1.12
Chondritic (CI) Abundance: 0.6379 ppm
Silicate Earth Abundance: 1.675 ppm
Crustal Abundance: 63 ppm
Seawater Abundance: ≈1*10−6 ppm
Core Abundance: ~0
Properties
Cerium is a reactive and gray metal that tarnishes in air and burns when heated. It usually occurs in substitution to major elements in minerals.
History and Use
Cerium was discovered in Bastnäs (Sweden) in 1803 by J. J. Berzelius and W. Hissinger and was named after asteroid Ceres. Cerium is the most abundant of the lanthanide metals (also called rare earth elements), a group of 15 similar elements between lanthanum and lutetium in the periodic table and behaves cosmochemically as a refractory lithophile...
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Bau M, Schmidt K, Koschinsky A, Hein J, Kuhn T, Usui A (2014) Discriminating between different genetic types of marine ferro-manganese crusts and nodules based on rare earth elements and yttrium. Chem Geol 381:1–9
Bellot N, Boyet M, Doucelance R, Pin C, Chauvel C, Auclair D (2015) Ce isotope systematics of island arc lavas from the Lesser Antilles. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 168:261–279
Cotten J, Le Dez A, Bau M, Caroff M, Maury RC, Dulski P, Fourcade S, Bohn M, Brousse R (1995) Origin of anomalous rare-earth element and yttrium enrichments in subaerially exposed basalts: evidence from French Polynesia. Chem Geol 119:115–138
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Chauvel, C. (2018). Cerium. In: White, W.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39312-4_88
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39312-4_88
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