Appearance and Characteristics
Harmful effects:
Dysprosium is considered to be moderately toxic.
Characteristics:
Dysprosium is a bright, soft, silvery-white, rare earth metal. It tarnishes slowly in air at room temperature and dissolves in both dilute and concentrated acids. When present in compounds, dysprosium exists usually in the trivalent state, Dy3+. Dysprosium and holmium have the highest magnetic strengths of any elements. Dysprosium also has a high thermal neutron absorption cross-section. which makes it an excellent neutron absorber.
Uses of Dysprosium
Dysprosium is good at absorbing neutrons and so it is used in dysprosium-oxide-nickel cement in control rods in nuclear reactors.
Terfenol-D (a terbium, iron and dysprosium alloy) expands or contracts in the presence of a magnetic field (magnetostriction) and is used in ships’ sonar systems and in sensors and transducers. Terfenol-D is also used in a speaker called the ‘SoundBug’, which turns any flat surface into a speaker.
Dysprosium is used in data storage applications such as compact discs and hard discs.
It is also used in medium source rare-earth lamps (MSRs) in the film industry. Dysprosium iodide is used these lamps to produce an intense white light. With vanadium, dysprosium is used in laser materials.