A 300g block of pure Europium
11 August 2023
Europium is a silvery-white metal that develops a dark oxide coating when exposed to air. Pure europium has relatively few uses, notably in the production of some types of optical glass. Its oxides are used as phosphors in television sets and computer screens and as an anti-counterfeiting measure in Euro bank notes. It has atomic number 63 and the symbol Eu
As early as 1896, chemist Eugène-Anatole Demarçay suspected that samples of samarium contained a novel element, and he was able to isolate it 1901 and proposed naming it after the continent of Europe, making it the first element to be discovered and named in the twentieth century.
Sources:
Demarçay, Eugène-Anatole. “Sur Un Nouvel Élément, l’Europium.” Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences, 132, Jan–Jun 1901, 1484–86 at 1485. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Miśkowiec, Paweł. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements—Part 3—Rivalry of Scientists in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Foundations of Chemistry, 12 November 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09452-9.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2008, s.v. europium, n.
Photo credit: Heinrich Pniok, 2006. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NonDerivative 3.0 (US) License.