Editing Erbium (section)

== History ==
[[File:Mosander Carl Gustav bw.jpg|thumb|right|[[Carl Gustaf Mosander]], the scientist who discovered erbium, lanthanum and terbium]]
Erbium (for [[Ytterby]], a village in [[Sweden]]) was [[discovery of the chemical elements|discovered]] by [[Carl Gustaf Mosander]] in 1843.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Mosander, C. G. |date=1843|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CJEOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA241|title=On the new metals, Lanthanium and Didymium, which are associated with Cerium; and on Erbium and Terbium, new metals associated with Yttria|journal=Philosophical Magazine|volume= 23|issue=152| pages =241–254|doi=10.1080/14786444308644728|url-access=subscription}} Note: The first part of this article, which does NOT concern erbium, is a translation of: C. G. Mosander (1842) [https://books.google.com/books?id=XK4tAAAAcAAJ&pg=387 "Något om Cer och Lanthan"] [Some (news) about cerium and lanthanum], ''[[Scandinavian Scientist Conference|Förhandlingar vid de Skandinaviske naturforskarnes tredje möte (Stockholm)]]'' [Transactions of the Third Scandinavian Scientist Conference (Stockholm)], vol. 3, pp. 387–398.</ref> Mosander was working with a sample of what was thought to be the single metal oxide [[yttria]], derived from the mineral [[gadolinite]]. He discovered that the sample contained at least two metal oxides in addition to pure yttria, which he named "[[erbia]]" and "[[terbia]]" after the village of Ytterby where the gadolinite had been found. Mosander was not certain of the purity of the oxides and later tests confirmed his uncertainty. Not only did the "yttria" contain yttrium, erbium, and terbium; in the ensuing years, chemists, geologists and spectroscopists discovered five additional elements: [[ytterbium]], [[scandium]], [[thulium]], [[holmium]], and [[gadolinium]].<ref name="Weeks">{{cite book |last1=Weeks |first1=Mary Elvira |title=The discovery of the elements |date=1956 |publisher=Journal of Chemical Education |location=Easton, PA |url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryoftheel002045mbp |edition=6th }}</ref>{{rp|701}}<ref name="XVI">{{cite journal | author = Weeks, Mary Elvira |author-link=Mary Elvira Weeks| title = The discovery of the elements: XVI. The rare earth elements | journal = Journal of Chemical Education | year = 1932 | volume = 9 | issue = 10 | pages = 1751&ndash;1773 | doi = 10.1021/ed009p1751 | bibcode=1932JChEd...9.1751W}}</ref><ref name="Beginnings">{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=James L. Marshall |last2=Marshall |first2=Virginia R. Marshall |title=Rediscovery of the elements: The Rare Earths–The Beginnings |journal=The Hexagon |date=2015 |pages=41–45 |url=http://www.chem.unt.edu/~jimm/REDISCOVERY%207-09-2018/Hexagon%20Articles/rare%20earths%20I.pdf |access-date=30 December 2019}}</ref><ref name="Virginia">{{cite journal |last1=Marshall |first1=James L. Marshall |last2=Marshall |first2=Virginia R. Marshall |title=Rediscovery of the elements: The Rare Earths–The Confusing Years |journal=The Hexagon |date=2015 |pages=72–77 |url=http://www.chem.unt.edu/~jimm/REDISCOVERY%207-09-2018/Hexagon%20Articles/rare%20earths%20II.pdf |access-date=30 December 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Piguet|first=Claude|year=2014|title=Extricating erbium|journal=Nature Chemistry|volume=6|issue=4|page=370|doi=10.1038/nchem.1908|pmid=24651207|bibcode=2014NatCh...6..370P|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="RSErbium">{{cite web |title=Erbium |url=https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/68/erbium |website=Royal Society of Chemistry|date= 2020 |access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref>

Erbia and terbia, however, were confused at this time. [[Marc Delafontaine]], a Swiss spectroscopist, mistakenly switched the names of the two elements in his work separating the oxides erbia and terbia. After 1860, terbia was renamed erbia and after 1877 what had been known as erbia was renamed terbia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Voncken |first=J.H.L. |title=The Rare Earth Elements: An Introduction |publisher=Cham : Springer International Publishing |year=2016 |isbn=978-3-319-26809-5 |edition=1st |series=SpringerBriefs in Earth Sciences |pages=10–11 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-26809-5}}</ref> Fairly pure Er<sub>2</sub>[[oxygen|O]]<sub>3</sub> was independently isolated in 1905 by [[Georges Urbain]] and [[Charles James (chemist)|Charles James]]. Reasonably pure erbium metal was not produced until 1934 when [[Wilhelm Klemm]] and [[Heinrich Bommer]] reduced the [[anhydrous]] [[chloride]] with [[potassium]] vapor.<ref>{{cite web |title=Facts About Erbium |url=https://www.livescience.com/38389-erbium.html |website=Live Science |access-date=22 October 2018|date=July 23, 2013}}</ref><ref name="emsley" />