Klaproth called it ochroite because if its ochre color,
but the honor of naming it went to Berzelius and Hisinger
and they called it cerium after the dwarf planet Ceres,
which Piazzi had named after goddess of golden grain.
“Hold it a second,” said Klaproth.
“If you name it after Ceres, it should be cererium.”
Nevertheless, Mosander later isolated pure cerium
and showed that the cerium oxide previously discovered
contained other rare earths. Eventually, the oxide produced
not only cerium, but also lanthanum, gadolinium,
praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, and europium.
Atomic number 58
Ferrocerium alloy is pyrophoric.
Look for that in your cigarette-lighter flints.
Carl Auer von Welsbach invented the flints
as a use for cerium, as well as successful gas mantles.
Mischmetal, a mix of cerium and rare earths,
is used in aluminum and iron alloys.
Cerium spontaneously ignites in air
and its hot gases are toxic.
Stuff with sparks
Different ferrous metals
when applied to a grinding wheel
produce different patterns of sparks.
When a flint strikes a steel
the sparks that fly
are fragments of burning steel
but sparks that fly
from a ferrocerium flint
are fragments of burning cerium.
Wilhelm Hisinger was the first to observe that during electrolysis
an element migrates to either the cathode (negative) or the anode (positive).
Cerium is electropositive; it migrates to the anode.
Wilhelm Hisinger was the first to observe that during electrolysis an element migrates to either the cathode (negative) or the anode (positive). Cerium is electropositive; it migrates to the anode.
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