Samarium

Samarium is the 62nd element in the periodic table of elements. I am going to do things a little differently this post- I am going to start out with the USES of the element. Samarium is used in the making of headphones and also is used to treat pain in bone cancer patients. It is also used in ethanol catalysts, permanent magnets, and nuclear reactors.

Samarium was discovered by Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran of France in 1879. He named it after the mineral smarskite. This element is not found free in nature, and the only way to produce it today is to do an ion exchange from monazite sand, a special sand that often contains rare earth elements such as samarium. Monazite sand can contain up to 2.8% of samarium.

A neat fact about samarium is that it was observed and it is thought to boost the metabolism, though it is not essential to the human body.