Cerium Mischmetal

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Ferro-Molybdenum
Molybdenum Disulfide
Molybdenum Trioxide
Ferro Niobium
Niobium Pentoxide
Lithium Hydroxide
Lithium Carbonate
Manganese Metal Lumps
Electrolytic Manganese Metal Flakes
Low Carbon Ferro Chrome
Chromium Metal
Neodymium Oxide
Cerium Oxide
Cerium Mischmetal
Praseodymium Oxide
Erbium Oxide
Europium Oxide
Dysprosium Oxide
Lanthanum Metal

Mischmetal is an alloy of rare earth elements in various naturally occurring proportions. It is also called cerium mischmetal, rare earth mischmetal or misch metal. A typical composition includes approximately 50% cerium and 25% lanthanum, with small amounts of neodymium and praseodymium. Its most common use is in the "flint" ignition device of many lighters and torches, although an alloy of only rare-earth elements would be too soft to give well sparks. For this purpose, it is blended with iron oxide and magnesium oxide to form a harder material known as ferrocerium.

Mischmetal is used in the preparation of virtually all rare earth elements. This is because such elements are nearly identical in most chemical processes, meaning that ordinary extraction processes do not distinguish them. Highly specialized processes, exploit subtle differences in solubility to separate mischmetal into its constituent elements, with each step producing only an incremental change in composition.

Historically, mischmetal was prepared from monazite, an anhydrous phosphate of the light lanthanides and thorium. The ore was "cracked" by reaction at high temperature either with concentrated sulfuric acid, or with sodium hydroxide. Thorium was removed by taking advantage of its weaker basicity relative to the trivalent lanthanides, the radioactive radium isotope daughter products of thorium were precipitated out using entrainment in barium sulfate, and the remaining lanthanides were converted to the chloride. The resulting "Rare Earth Chloride" (Hexahydrate), sometimes known as "Lanthanide Chloride", was the major commodity chemical of the rare earth industry. By careful heating, preferably with ammonium chloride or in an atmosphere of hydrogen chloride, the hexahydrate could be dehydrated to provide the anhydrous chloride. Electrolysis of the molten anhydrous chloride (admixed with other anhydrous halide to improve the melt behavior) led to the formation of molten Mischmetal, which would then be cast into ingots.

Item	Parameter	Inspection Analysis
TREO	(wt%)	99%
Ce	(wt%)	65%
La	(max%)	34%
Pr	(max%)	34%
Nd	(max%)	0.02%
Sm	(max%)	0.1%
Eu	(max%)	0.1%
Gd	(max%)	0.1%
Fe	(max%)	0.25%
Si	(max%)	0.04%
C	(max%)	0.026%
Ca	(max%)	0.014%

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