Yttrium - here's that village Ytterby again

Yttrium is yet another element named after the village of Ytterby and is important in the development of high temperature superconductors, says Allan Blackman from AUT in ep 96 of Elemental. Here we go again - yet another element named after the Swedish village of Ytterby with a suitably tortuous extraction process, although surprisingly it is actually not a lanthanoid; it is a transition metal. It is used in camping gas mantles along with thorium, is added to cast iron to make it more ductile, and appears in alloys used in cutting tools, bearings and jet engines. When used with ytterbium, barium, copper and oxygen, it creates a high-temperature superconductor that operates at much warmer temperatures than most superconductors. Kiwi scientists Jeff Tallon and Bob Buckley are at the forefront of high temperature superconductor research, says Professor Allan Blackman from the Auckland University of Technology, in episode 96 of Elemental. Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

You can listen to Yttrium - here's that village Ytterby again online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Yttrium - here's that village Ytterby again is an episode from Elemental by RNZ.

This episode is 00:08:28 long.

This episode was published on Dec 15, 2019.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Elemental when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.