Lutetium Research Paper

My element is Lutetium and number 71 on the periodic table. It is the last of the lanthanide series and the rarest and most expensive of the series. Lutetium is always found with rare earth metals and it is very hard to separate from other rare elements. This is why it cost $10,000 per kilogram. The lanthanide series is a series of metallic elements and is a part of the rare earth metals. Lutetium is silvery white and shiny. Of the rare earth metals it is the hardest and densest.

Lutetium was found by three people from different countries. The three people were Georges Urbain, Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, and Charles James. They all found lutetium in the mineral ytterbia (Ytterbia was thought to be only made up of ytterbia). Lutecium was given its name by Georges Urbain because he was first to publish his research. He named it Lutetium from the Latin word "Lutetia," which means Paris.
Some of its physical properties

Lutetium does not have many uses because it is rare and is expensive and it is mostly used in chemical research. However, there are some uses like being a catalyst, helping with cancer therapy and dating the ages of meteorites. Also “stable lutetium can be used as catalysts in petroleum cracking in refineries and can also be used in alkylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization applications.” In other words it can be used as a catalyst in splitting molecules in refineries, it can be used to produce a chemical reaction between hydrogen and another compound or element,