Metals With Names You Never Heard Of.
RARE METALS. Recently,in the course of work I came to be acquainted with rare metals with names that I never heard of: Antimony is not a spice, Yttrium is not a Swedish word, Dysprosium is not a medical condition, Germanium is not a flower, These are all a class of metals known as Rare Metals. Few are aware that these metals are strategic to the modern economy, as they are essential components of many modern industrial processes. This is because these metals have properties such as high electrical conductivity, hardness, corrosion resistance, high refractive index, high melting point, strength and light weight. All these properties are required for many products of the modern industrial economy: Electronic capacitors, missile parts, jet engine fan blades, machine tools and drills, semi-conductor etching, surgical instruments, nuclear reactors, chemical processing plants, LEDs and LCDS, X-rays, fibre optics, hard glass and ceramics... the list is endless. These materials are so i...