Rare earth element | cerium (Ce)

The element ‘cerium’ was discovered and named in 1803 by German Klaus, Swedes Usbzil, and Hessenger, in memory of the asteroid Ceres discovered in 1801.

The application of cerium can be mainly summarized in the following aspects.

(1) Cerium, as a glass additive, can absorb ultraviolet and infrared rays and has been widely used in automotive glass. Not only can it prevent ultraviolet radiation, but it can also reduce the temperature inside the car, thereby saving electricity for air conditioning. Since 1997, cerium oxide has been added to all automotive glass in Japan. In 1996, at least 2000 tons of cerium oxide were used in automotive glass, while in the United States, about 1000 tons were added.

(2) Cerium is currently being applied to automotive exhaust purification catalysts, which can effectively prevent a large amount of automotive exhaust gas from being discharged into the air. The United States accounts for more than one-third of the total consumption of rare earths in this area.

(3) Cerium sulfide can replace metals such as lead and cadmium that are harmful to the environment and humans in pigments, color plastics, and can also be used in industries such as coatings, ink, and paper. At present, the leading company is the French company Rhone Planck.

(4) The Ce: Li SAF laser system is a solid-state laser developed in the United States, which can be used to detect biological weapons and medicine by monitoring the concentration of tryptophan.

Cerium has a wide range of applications, with almost all rare earth applications containing cerium. Such as polishing powder, hydrogen storage materials, thermoelectric materials, cerium tungsten electrodes, ceramic capacitors, piezoelectric ceramics, cerium silicon carbide abrasives, fuel cell raw materials, gasoline catalysts, certain permanent magnet materials, various alloy steels and non-ferrous metals, etc.