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Rundown about Gadolinium and Its Applications

Gadolinium(Gd) is the one of the lanthanide metals with an atomic number 64. Gadolinium is a bright, soft, silvery-white metal which is both ductile and malleable. Gadolinium was discovered in 1880 by Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignacby using spectroscopy while an oxide preparation was made taken from mineral samarskite. Pure metallic gadolinium, nearly 99.3% pure, was first prepared by French chemist and engineer Felix Trombe in 1935. Pure gadolinium itself exhibits a large magneto caloric effect near its Curie temperature of 20oC. Hence, it has sparked great interest in producing gadolinium alloys with a larger effect and tunable Curie temperature. One of the gadolinium isotopes, 157Gd, has a highest thermal neutron capture cross section of any known stable element. Gadolinium is mainly extracted from monazite and bastnasite. Heating gadolinium oxide and salts with calcium at 1450oC in argon atmosphere the needed gadolinium could be obtained. Sponge gadolinium could be produced from gadolinium chloride (GdCl3) by reducing it with some appropriate metals at 1312oC at a low pressure. Gadolinium has no large applications, but it has a variety of specialized uses.
Applications:
Gadolinium is used in neutron radiography and in shielding of nuclear reactors with high effectiveness.
Gadolinium is used to target tumors in neutron therapy since gadolinium has a high neutron cross section
Gadolinium is used as a secondary, emergency shut down measure in some nuclear reactors, particularly of the CANDU reactor type
Gadolinium is used in marine propulsion systems as a burnable poison
Gadolinium is used to improve the workability and resistance of iron, chromium and related alloys to high temperatures and oxidation by adding a very few amount of it (nearly 0.01 fraction of alloy)
Gadolinium is used in alloys to make magnets, electronic components and data storage disks
Gadolinium is used for making gadolinium yttrium garnet which has microwave applications and is used in various optical components and as a substrate material for magneto-optical films
Gadolinium is used in intravenous agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) due to its magnetic properties
https://nanografi.com/nanoparticles/gd2o3-gadolinium-oxide-nanoparticles-13-95nm-purity-99-99/

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