Holmium and Yttrium

[Rithaniel]

Okay, so I was off researching the heavier elements out of pure curiosity and I learned that Holmium forms extremely magnetic compounds with Yttrium. However, looking through a few Google searches, I found no further details on these compounds. So, does anyone know about these compounds and what they are like? How magnetic are they, specifically?

Also, just for the sake of discussion: In the hypothetical pursuit of terraforming Mars, the single largest obstacle is the planet's lack of magnetic field and the human race's current inability to restart the core of a planet. Suppose, however, that you were to instead construct a net of hyper-magnetic satellites orbiting around Mars, to grant it an artificial magnetic field, free of the trouble of melting the core of a celestial body. What would such an undertaking be like? What confounding factors might there be?

[Dafni]

I work with rare-earth metals (lanthanides) and their compounds on a daily basis. Never looked into Ho/Y alloys for their magnetism, though. We're more interested in optical properties. I have access to scientific literature and if you want I can look into it.

Anyway, your idea sounds neat, but keep in mind a planet is a huge thing. Just think about how even a strong neodymium magnet can not upset a compass needle when it's a few meters away. To give a celestial body an artificial magnetic field might require magnetic satellites the size of moons, and even then you still have not the same situation as if the planet had it's own field.

But what do I know, I never studied physics. Just guessing around here.

cheers

Daf

Edited September 1, 2015 by Dafni

[ZetaX]

You do not want a planet's field being replaced by magnetic satellites. Their orbits would decay rather fast due to magnetic/inductive effects. Additionally, you would be required to reorient them all the time for similiar reasons. And they would need to orbit in a very complicated pattern.

But the main reason is: it's absurdely complicated and expensive in regard to other solutions. For a magnetic field reaching out 10's of thousends of kilometers, a few hundred kilometers of orbital height won't change anything; or you need an absurd amount of satellites when covering everything far out. It would be much easier to simply place those magnets on the ground, every single problem I just mentioned would vanish.

[Rune]

Also, just for the sake of discussion: In the hypothetical pursuit of terraforming Mars, the single largest obstacle is the planet's lack of magnetic field and the human race's current inability to restart the core of a planet. Suppose, however, that you were to instead construct a net of hyper-magnetic satellites orbiting around Mars, to grant it an artificial magnetic field, free of the trouble of melting the core of a celestial body. What would such an undertaking be like? What confounding factors might there be?

In one word: Scale.

Planets are HUGE things, and they move on timescales that a human has trouble grasping. It would be far easier to replenish the atmosphere as it is lost, probably with the mechanism you used to create it in the first place during your terraformation. That is the basic effect of not having a magnetosphere, having the atmosphere blown away by the solar wind, but it actually happens over a really big timescale, on the order of thousands-millions of years. Also, the radiation protection a magnetic field offers, actually, is quite minimal compared to what having a few tonnes of air between you and space.

Rune. So yeah, just top off the atmosphere every couple hundred years.

[PB666]

I work with rare-earth metals (lanthanides) and their compounds on a daily basis. Never looked into Ho/Y alloys for their magnetism, though. We're more interested in optical properties. I have access to scientific literature and if you want I can look into it.

Anyway, your idea sounds neat, but keep in mind a planet is a huge thing. Just think about how even a strong neodymium magnet can not upset a compass needle when it's a few meters away. To give a celestial body an artificial magnetic field might require magnetic satellites the size of moons, and even then you still have not the same situation as if the planet had it's own field.

But what do I know, I never studies physics. Just guessing around here.

cheers

Daf

Finds Mars poles, At the equator create one large magnet but dont magnetize it but i tiny thin wafer entangle pairs of atoms in the wfaer then spilt the entangled parts, and attached the entagled parts to the large unpolarized magnets at the poles with the thin wafer on the bottom and the split suface pointng toward the other pole. Then bury the whole thing. Using an array of 6 solar panels mounted vertically and facing each of six directions horizontally feed about a terrawatt of power into the magnets, 2/3 rds to polarize them and 1/3 to cool them. Now you have a planetary field, because the magnetic field is wormholed through the planet the magnetic field lines get stretched over the surface of the planet, but not through the planet. This all works of course only if you believe string theory.

Disclaimer. You might have to have millions of magnets with similarly entangled poles spread across the surface of the planet to have a consistent magnetic field with some local abnormalites, ther would be no dip lines and the magnetic field lines might only extend a kilometer above the surface. Of course since thes are solar powered you would need cells and batteries that would have to be replaced every 6 years.

Edited September 1, 2015 by PB666

[MinimumSky5]

Finds Mars poles, At the equator create one large magnet but dont magnetize it but i tiny thin wafer entangle pairs of atoms in the wfaer then spilt the entangled parts, and attached the entagled parts to the large unpolarized magnets at the poles with the thin wafer on the bottom and the split suface pointng toward the other pole. Then bury the whole thing. Using an array of 6 solar panels mounted vertically and facing each of six directions horizontally feed about a terrawatt of power into the magnets, 2/3 rds to polarize them and 1/3 to cool them. Now you have a planetary field, because the magnetic field is wormholed through the planet the magnetic field lines get stretched over the surface of the planet, but not through the planet. This all works of course only if you believe string theory.

Disclaimer. You might have to have millions of magnets with similarly entangled poles spread across the surface of the planet to have a consistent magnetic field with some local abnormalites, ther would be no dip lines and the magnetic field lines might only extend a kilometer above the surface. Of course since thes are solar powered you would need cells and batteries that would have to be replaced every 6 years.

This is so complicated (not impossible, complicated) that terraforming the planet and replenishing the atmosphere periodically would probably be easier!

[ZetaX]

This is so complicated (not impossible, complicated) that terraforming the planet and replenishing the atmosphere periodically would probably be easier!

No, not complicated. It is simply random technobabble.

[PB666]

This is so complicated (not impossible, complicated) that terraforming the planet and replenishing the atmosphere periodically would probably be easier!

Not only complicated but backed by the latest speculative theory about Quantum Entanglement.

[MinimumSky5]

latest speculative theory

That's the most important reason why that method likely wouldn't work.

[Dafni]

quantum entanglement, hmmm...

(we need a "can-o-worms" emoticon)

[ZetaX]

Not only complicated but backed by the latest speculative theory about Quantum Entanglement.

I already told you a couple of times that you misunderstand entanglement (and now also that new hypothesis). Please finally talk to an actuall physicist about this (as you seem to ignore everything I or the actual physicists in this forum say); go to some renowned university, find the physics department, find a physicists (who has a PhD in it; i.e. not just any studen), ask him.

[PB666]

I already told you a couple of times that you misunderstand entanglement (and now also that new hypothesis). Please finally talk to an actuall physicist about this (as you seem to ignore everything I or the actual physicists in this forum say); go to some renowned university, find the physics department, find a physicists (who has a PhD in it; i.e. not just any studen), ask him.

i understand it just fine, this thread which you seem to have singled out my response is complete BS, so a BS response is completely fitting, as I have pointed out twice, its not serious. The concept of trying to create a dispersive magnetic fiels from satelittes or isolated magnetic fields on the surface will not work, the magnetic field lines from two poles even separted at one end by entanglement will be distorted through the planet, or travel point to point on a surface array. To top that off the entangled pairs may force the lines throuh the fictitious wormhole. The dynamo at the center of the earth is made of almost solid iron and thosand miles wide and is driven by the earth-moon tidal forces. One cannot expect to duplicate this even with a million careful crafted electro magnetis on the planets surface.

If you look at earths field it has a structure the dip lines run horizontal at the equator and verticle at the poles, this has relevance on how charges move around in space. There is no practical way to duplicate this, even with perfect knowledge of entanglement, cloaked magnetic fields (a recent science post here that I disclaimed the wormhole ascertation), or entangled pairs (recent science post where i claimed disbelief at the conclusion). So if you have read these you know that my post was joking, and if you haven't then .................

[Woksaus]

Okay, so I was off researching the heavier elements out of pure curiosity and I learned that Holmium forms extremely magnetic compounds with Yttrium. However, looking through a few Google searches, I found no further details on these compounds. So, does anyone know about these compounds and what they are like? How magnetic are they, specifically?

All rare earth elements are pretty similar due to their orbital structures. This makes them hard to isolate, even while they're not that rare. Fun fact: most rare earth elements were found in Sweden and one village has four elements named after it

Rare earths are more interesting for their optical properties than their magnetic properties and they are the basis for most lasers out there. Neodymium and samarium are often used in rare earth magnets. I'm guessing they mostly use Neodymium in NdFeB magnets because they can be made fairly easily and are mostly iron (~75%), a cheap and common material. I looked up the Ho/Yt magnets (this article, right?) and it seems that they are made of highly ordered superlattices, which aren't cheap.

Also, just for the sake of discussion: In the hypothetical pursuit of terraforming Mars, the single largest obstacle is the planet's lack of magnetic field and the human race's current inability to restart the core of a planet. Suppose, however, that you were to instead construct a net of hyper-magnetic satellites orbiting around Mars, to grant it an artificial magnetic field, free of the trouble of melting the core of a celestial body. What would such an undertaking be like? What confounding factors might there be?

Like some of the others already mentioned, planetary magnetic fields extends pretty far out into space, but not very intense. A large shell of small, strong magnets simply wouldn't produce the same magnetic field.

I work with rare-earth metals (lanthanides) and their compounds on a daily basis. Never looked into Ho/Y alloys for their magnetism, though. We're more interested in optical properties. I have access to scientific literature and if you want I can look into it.

Cool, what are you working on? I did my bachelor's project on the optical properties of cerium-doped lanthanum phosphate nanoparticles, it was pretty interesting

[Dafni]

Cool, what are you working on? I did my bachelor's project on the optical properties of cerium-doped lanthanum phosphate nanoparticles, it was pretty interesting

Nice! Mind if I ask what group your were in?

I'm involved in all kinds of projects, mostly optical, some magnetic stuff. Never messed with phosphate nanoparticles myself, all nanoparticles we did so far were fluorides. But Cerium I know well, doped Cerium (and most other lanthanides) into all kinds of host materials.

I'm the lab technician of a small university group, inorganic chemistry. Crystal growth is my main thing there. Been doing that for 15 years now, messing with hygroscopic single crystals and all that. Mostly lanthanide halides, for upconversion or scintillator studies. If you're interested I can PM you the link to our stuff. It's fundamental research, the good stuff

cheers

[Hcube]

Nice! Mind if I ask what group your were in?

I'm involved in all kinds of projects, mostly optical, some magnetic stuff. Never messed with phosphate nanoparticles myself, all nanoparticles we did so far were fluorides. But Cerium I know well, doped Cerium (and most other lanthanides) into all kinds of host materials.

I'm the lab technician of a small university group, inorganic chemistry. Crystal growth is my main thing there. Been doing that for 15 years now, messing with hygroscopic single crystals and all that. Mostly lanthanide halides, for upconversion or scintillator studies. If you're interested I can PM you the link to our stuff. It's fundamental research, the good stuff

cheers

How come you know about magnetic properties of the Yttrium if you work with Lanthanides ? Just wondering...

I'm not really experienced with the periodical table yet, but i'm learning orbital structures this year and i have to know the (whole) table by memory so i'm getting quite interested !

[Woksaus]

How come you know about magnetic properties of the Yttrium if you work with Lanthanides ? Just wondering... I'm not really experienced with the periodical table yet, but i'm learning orbital structures this year and i have to know the (whole) table by memory so i'm getting quite interested !

Elements often have properties similar to those right above and below them. Examples of these are the alkali metals, halogens and noble gases. Yttrium is right above lutetium, so it kind of behaves like a rare earth element.

Orbitals is where it's at! A lot of properties of elements and compounds can be explained by their orbital structure. For example, the molecular orbitals of inorganic compounds determine their colour. The luminescent properties of rare earth elements are determined by their f-orbitals.

[Hcube]

Elements often have properties similar to those right above and below them. Examples of these are the alkali metals, halogens and noble gases. Yttrium is right above lutetium, so it kind of behaves like a rare earth element.

Orbitals is where it's at! A lot of properties of elements and compounds can be explained by their orbital structure. For example, the molecular orbitals of inorganic compounds determine their colour. The luminescent properties of rare earth elements are determined by their f-orbitals.

Wait, isn't Yttrium rather just above Lanthane 57La ?

And their similar orbitals and electronic structure would give them similar chemical properties, not physical, am i wrong ?

[Dafni]

I consider Sc and Y rare-earth metals too, they are all lanthanides in my book, and I am not the only one

They (and their compounds) all have "similar" chemical and physical properties.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Dafni

[Woksaus]

Wait, isn't Yttrium rather just above Lanthane 57La ?

And their similar orbitals and electronic structure would give them similar chemical properties, not physical, am i wrong ?

Depends, sometimes yttrium and scandium are classified with lanthanum and actinium, sometimes with lutetium and lawrencium. As you go down the periodic system, elements start to become more similar due to their big size.

Both similar chemical and physical properties. This site has a nice overview of different properties for the entire periodic table: http://periodictable.com/Properties/A/AbsoluteBoilingPoint.html

[Hcube]

I consider Sc and Y rare-earth metals too, they are all lanthanides in my book, and I am not the only one

They (and their compounds) all have "similar" chemical and physical properties.

Sc and Y might be above Lutetium and Lawrencium, but they are not lanthanides for sure, since they belong to the D group and not to the F group. They are transition metals (whatever the definition you consider). How the hell do you come up considering them as lanthanides ? Are there exceptions depending on the domain of research/science ? I'm curious !

Edited September 2, 2015 by Hcube

[Dafni]

You are technically right, of course. It's more like the Scandium group, or the rare-earth group (the terms rare-earth and lanthanide have their own little entanglement LOL). BUT, by their atomic radius and their phys/chem properties and appearance of the pure metal and the compounds they "belong" more to the lanthanides than the transition metals for sure. They form the same kind of compounds, they behave in the same way.

They are all trivalent, unless you really force them to become very sensitive divalent salts (unlike transition metals) believe me, I know what I'm talking about here.

If you have a lattice that contains Y, you can substitute them with any lanthanide (try that with transition metals)

Look at the periodic table in a 3D way, the lanthanides are stacked on that 57to71 position, in the same group as Sc and Y.

Look at the suppliers of lanthanides, they all carry Sc/Y too.

Go to a conference on lanthanides, you'll see Sc and Y all over the place

In chemical shelves in labs all over the globe you'll find Sc/Y among the lanthanides. It just makes sense.

The valence is the strongest point IMO, they really are so much different than transition metals. Like for example all their halides can be sublimed, transition metal halides often decompose or just melt.

But yeah, you are right, let's just call them rare-earth metals. The term lanthanide is not correct for Y/Sc, but it should take that from a guy who handles them every day. Got all of them here in my dry glovebox, transition metals OTOH I just keep under air. Just sayin

sorry for the confusion, and thanks for the discussion

peace

Edited September 3, 2015 by Dafni

[Hcube]

You are technically right, of course. It's more like the Scandium group, or the rare-earth group (the terms rare-earth and lanthanide have their own little entanglement LOL). BUT, by their atomic radius and their phys/chem properties and appearance of the pure metal and the compounds they "belong" more to the lanthanides than the transition metals for sure. They form the same kind of compounds, they behave in the same way.

They are all trivalent, unless you really force them to become very sensitive divalent salts (unlike transition metals) believe me, I know what I'm talking about here.

If you have a lattice that contains Y, you can substitute them with any lanthanide (try that with transition metals)

Look at the periodic table in a 3D way, the lanthanides are stacked on that 57to71 position, in the same group as Sc and Y.

Look at the suppliers of lanthanides, they all carry Sc/Y too.

Go to a conference on lanthanides, you'll see Sc and Y all over the place

In chemical shelves in labs all over the globe you'll find Sc/Y among the lanthanides. It just makes sense.

The valence is the strongest point IMO, they really are so much different than transition metals. Like for example all their halides can be sublimed, transition metal halides often decompose or just melt.

But yeah, you are right, let's just call them rare-earth metals. The term lanthanide is not correct for Y/Sc, but it should take that from a guy who handles them every day. Got all of them here in my dry glovebox, transition metals OTOH I just keep under air. Just sayin

sorry for the confusion, and thanks for the discussion

peace

That's really interesting, Thanks !

Are there any other oddities of this kind in the classification ? Some elements that "should", from some point of view, be part of another group/family ?

[Dafni]

Man, I just lost a long reply because of some browser glitch

From the top of my head I can only think of Hydrogen, maybe. It clearly stands out from the rest of the 1st group. And then maybe Mercury, because it's liquid at ambient temps, and its fellow group members Zn and Cd have melting points of 320 and 420°C.

I don't know much of the very heavy elements though, nr 84 and up, strange things might happen there