REE meaning in Chemistry ?

Answer: What is Rare Earth Element mean?

The rare-earth elements, also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides, or the lanthanides (though yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare-earths) are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metals. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare-earth elements because they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides and exhibit similar chemical properties, but have different electronic and magnetic properties.

The 1985 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry "Red Book" (p. 45) recommends that lanthanoid is used rather than lanthanide. The ending "-ide" normally indicates a negative ion. However, owing to wide current usage, "lanthanide" is still allowed and is roughly analogous to rare earth element.

In pure form, these metals tarnish slowly in air at room temperature, and react slowly with cold water to form hydroxides, liberating hydrogen. They react with steam to form oxides, and at elevated temperature (400 °C) ignite spontaneously and burn with a fierce colorful pyrotechnic flame.

These elements and their compounds have no known biological function. The water-soluble compounds are mildly to moderately toxic, but the insoluble ones are not.

The rare earths have diverse applications in electrical and electronic components, lasers, glass, magnetic materials, and industrial processes, but since they do not occur as base metals or in lump or visible quantities like iron or aluminum, their names and properties are unfamiliar in everyday life. One of the most familiar may be unusually powerful neodymium magnets sold as novelties.

Despite their name, rare-earth elements are relatively plentiful in Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, more abundant than copper. All isotopes of promethium are radioactive, and it does not occur naturally in the earth's crust; however, a trace amount is generated by decay of uranium 238. They are often found in minerals with thorium, and less commonly uranium. Because of their geochemical properties, rare-earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found concentrated in rare-earth minerals. Consequently, economically exploitable ore deposits are sparse (i.e. "rare"). The first rare-earth mineral discovered (1787) was gadolinite, a black mineral composed of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon, and other elements. This mineral was extracted from a mine in the village of Ytterby in Sweden; four of the rare-earth elements bear names derived from this single location.

According to chemistry professor Andrea Sella, rare-earth elements differ from other elements, insofar that "rare-earth metals, when looked at anatomically, seem to be inseparable from each other, in that they are all almost exactly the same in terms of their chemical properties. However, in terms of their electronic properties, their magnetic properties, each one is really exquisitely unique, and so it can occupy a tiny niche in our technology, where virtually nothing else can." For example, "the rare-earth elements praseodymium (Pr) and neodymium (Nd) can both be embedded inside glass and they completely cut out the glare from the flame when one is doing glass-blowing."

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