# Talk:Lutetium

Some of the text in this entry was rewritten from Los Alamos National Laboratory - Lutetium. 
Additional text was taken directly from the Elements database 20001107 (via dict.org), Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (via dict.org) and WordNet (r) 1.7 (via dict.org). 
Data for the table were obtained from the sources listed on the subject page and Wikipedia:WikiProject Elements but were reformatted and converted into SI units.


### Least abundant element?
The occurrence section states that this element is "the least abundant of all naturally-occurring elements".  The article on Astatine also makes this claim, when it says "Astatine is the rarest naturally occuring element".  They can't both be the rarest natrally occuring elements. TerraFrost 02:38, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I think this has already been corrected, but lutetium is ranked as about as abundant as silver. Scott Tygett Sept. 2007

my ignorance of chemistry is bottomless
Q: is "sorbed" a technical term in chemistry?
not knowing what to do, I will take no further action
Howard from NYC (talk) 11:17, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

@Howard from NYC I changed sorbed to adsorbed, a more specific and perhaps more familiar word. See also sorption though you have to study the page to distinguish "ab" from "ad". Johnjbarton (talk) 15:13, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

On the article "Lutetium (177Lu) chloride", i changed "lutetium (177Lu) chloride" to just "177Lu chloride", other than the first few mentions of said product. I wanted it to be more concise, and in said expression, "lutetium" is redundant. Okay? Solomonfromfinland (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Seems ok to me. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:45, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

This line of text is incomprehensible:
"Confusion over element 72, Zirconium lead x-ray spectroscopic studies that suggested Welsbach's 1907 samples of lutetium had been pure, while Urbain's 1907 samples only contained traces of lutetium." 2601:46:37F:1E50:CC4B:5C97:9215:B4FA (talk) 17:49, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

 Done Johnjbarton (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

@Double sharp it seems we have conflicting sources. The one quoted in the article:

Sicius, Hermann (2024). Handbook of the Chemical Elements. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-68921-9. ISBN 978-3-662-68920-2.
says:

The discovery of lutetium is strongly linked to that of ytterbium and thulium; the same chemists (Urbain, Auer von Welsbach, James) were significantly involved here as well.
However the same source does not mention lutetium in its history of thulium.  Other sources like Marshall and Weeks do not connect Lutetium to thulium directly. 
I think we should remove the Sicius source here and the related content. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

I agree, Sicius is wrong here. There is a rather long and detailed account by Helge Kragh in "Episodes from the History of the Rare Earth Elements" that I was intending to use for this; in the meantime, until I get time to summarise it, I would agree with removing Sicius' account. Double sharp (talk) 15:35, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Done.
Marshall, James L. Marshall; Marshall, Virginia R. Marshall (2015). "Rediscovery of the elements: The Rare Earths–The Confusing Years" (PDF). The Hexagon: 72–77. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
says:
The last naturally occurring rare earth discovered was lutetium, in 1907. In The HEXAGON we have previously visited the convoluted story of this discovery. Today the discovery of lutetium is credited to three chemists: the opportunistic Urbain who published first (and prematurely), Welsbach who presented evidence that he had discovered the element earlier, and James who had the only pure sample of lutetium existing at that time. Today all three scientists are considered co-discoverers of lutetium. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:41, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
The connection to Hafnium is discussed in
Marshall, J. L., & Marshall, V. R. (2003). Rediscovery of the Elements. Riddarhyttan, Sweden, The Hexagon, 94(1), 1-8.
At the time of the discovery of lutetium, Urbain was claiming evidence of another element beyond lutetium (atomic number 71), which he called “celtium.” However, his preconceived notion that the next element would be a rare earth was leading him astray (the next element, atomic number 72, was actually hafnium, which was not found in rare earth minerals but instead in zircon). Whereas Urbain was claiming he was obtaining purer and purer samples of “celtium” (which he followed by magnetic susceptibility measurements), he was actually witnessing purer samples of lutetium, which others had already prepared.
So by this source the connection between lutetium and hafnium is not chemical but conceptual. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:36, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
Yeah, that's correct. Per Kragh, there are really two phases to the controversy: an earlier one that more or less ended in 1910 with Urbain and Auer arguing over priority (James stayed out of it), and a later one in 1923 during the celtium/hafnium debacle, where the scientists involved in discovering Hf started supporting Auer's old claim and renaming lutetium to cassiopeium (this generally persuaded German and Scandinavian scientists but not elsewhere, and). The logic of course being that since Urbain's "Ct" was really pure 71, his "Lu" clearly was not, and so Auer should have priority since his "Cp" was indeed pure 71 – so them reopening the case was really about discrediting Urbain's claim to 72. Of course, 71 and 72 have vastly different chemistry (72 not being a rare earth at all). Jensen finally wrote in 1953 (doi:10.1021/ba-1953-0008.ch005) regarding why IUPAC chose to standardise on lutetium (not Urbain's spelling "lutecium"): The name cassiopeium is used only in German and (in part) Dutch. Both for this reason and because the name is difficult to adapt to some languages, the name lutetium is preferred. It is not intended to settle the question of priority (Paneth, 6) by this decision. The hitherto used spelling "lutecium" should be replaced by lutetium, because the name should be derived from the Latin form Lutetia rather than from its French equivalent Lutèce.
When I get time, I'll summarise all this. Double sharp (talk) 16:19, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
Done, feel free to summarise and edit. :) Double sharp (talk) 16:50, 11 October 2025 (UTC)