Appearance and Characteristics
Harmful effects:
Samarium is considered to be moderately toxic.
Characteristics:
Samarium is a bright, fairly hard, silvery white metal. It is one of the lanthanide rare earth metals.
It is stable in air at normal temperatures, but ignites in air when the temperature is 150 oC or higher. In moist air it tarnishes to the oxide.
In its compounds Samarium usually exists as a trivalent ion, Sm3+. Most of its salts are pale yellow in color.
Uses of Samarium
Samarium’s main use is in samarium-cobalt alloy magnets for headphones, small motors and pickups for some electric guitars. These magnets have a high resistance to demagnetization. They keep their ferromagnetism at temperatures up to 700 oC. (3) As a result of their ability to operate at high temperatures, SmCo magnets are used in precision-guided weapons.
Samarium oxide (samaria) is used as a catalyst for the dehydration and dehydrogenation of ethanol. Samarium oxide is also used in infrared absorbing glass. Radioactive 153Sm is used in the treatment of cancers. Samarium is also used as an absorber in nuclear reactors.