eXtraction
The extraction process for Neodymium is very difficult. This difficulty springs from the fact that neodymium is naturally found in “Misch metal, monazite sand and the mineral bastnasite,” (“Neodymium”, par 3). Because these materials contain many other lanthanides and other rare-earth elements makes it difficult to separate just neodymium. It is because of this difficulty that neodymium is never extracted or isolated in small lab size proportions. “The first isolation process of neodymium involves extracting the lanthanides and metals out of the ores in their salt form. This step is carried out using sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and sodium hydroxide. To further isolation the neodymium from other lanthanides and metals, procedures such as solvent extractions and ion exchange chromatography are used. Once neodymium has been reduced to its fluoride form using these processes, it can be reacted with pure calcium metal in a heated chamber to form pure neodymium and calcium fluoride. Some calcium contaminants remain in the neodymium, and vacuum processes are used to remove any of these contaminants,” (“Neodymium”, par 4).