Lutetium - Periodic Table of Videos
Lutetium is element number 71 and has the chemical symbol Lu. But did you know it was named after a very famous capital city? More links in description below ...
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So this is a very, very special sample of lutetium. Again from the bottom end of the periodic table, the lanthanides, and you can see it’s a really quite beautiful metallic foil here. So lutetium is the last of the 4f lanthanide series and it’s also used for dating meteorites. And, it’s a very small sample. It weighs a few milligrams but it’s a very, very nice sample, stirred under an inert atmosphere so that we can control the chemistry, so it’s full of un-reactive argon so we can’t form the oxide. Lutetium, although it might not be obvious to you, is named after a European capital city. Lutetium is also used in radionucleotide treatment for cancers so it’s got a very useful role. And, in fact, it’s named after Paris as Lutetia was the Roman name for Paris, when it w...
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So this is a very, very special sample of lutetium. Again from the bottom end of the periodic table, the lanthanides, and you can see it’s a really quite beautiful metallic foil here. So lutetium is the last of the 4f lanthanide series and it’s also used for dating meteorites. And, it’s a very small sample. It weighs a few milligrams but it’s a very, very nice sample, stirred under an inert atmosphere so that we can control the chemistry, so it’s full of un-reactive argon so we can’t form the oxide. Lutetium, although it might not be obvious to you, is named after a European capital city. Lutetium is also used in radionucleotide treatment for cancers so it’s got a very useful role. And, in fact, it’s named after Paris as Lutetia was the Roman name for Paris, when it w...
