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So here you can see we have a very thin foil sample of dysprosium. Again it is from the
bottom end of the periodic table, very, very reactive.
Stored very, very carefully as a foil. Now if we
open, very carefully, we might see if the metal is
still there.
Ok so dysprosium is used in nuclear fuel rods because it is very good at capturing neutrons,
which means that you can modulate how hot a
nuclear reaction is getting which is why it is used
in powerstations to prevent the reactions from
running away out of control.
So take off all this foil and then we can withdraw
the sample. So it is in this really nice paper. So is
the sample still there? Oh beautiful, here we see
this wonderful sample of dysprosium.
If you mix dysprosium with cadmium and sulphur it can be used in devices which produce infrared
beams. Now chemists use infrared beams quite a
lot because when you irradiate a sample, a compound with infrared then certain
absorbencies will occur which are specific to
stretching or bending modes which the molecule will do. This is a way of, therefore, scanning
molecules and getting information about their composition and structure.
Beautiful foil.
Do you happen to know anything about this element?
Not a thing, that’s Steve’s domain.
Yeah!