Occurrence and Production
Like all other rare earths, holmium is not naturally found as a free element. It does occur combined with other elements in gadolinite, monazite, and other rare-earth minerals. The main mining areas are China, United States, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, and Australia with reserves of holmium estimated as 400,000 tonnes.
It is commercially extracted via ion-exchange from monazite sand (0.05% holmium) but is still difficult to separate from other rare earths. The element has been isolated through the reduction of its anhydrous chloride or fluoride with metallic calcium. Its estimated abundance in the Earth's crust is 1.3 mg/kg. Holmium obeys the Oddo-Harkins rule: as an odd-numbered element, it is less abundant than its immediate even-numbered neighbors, dysprosium and erbium. However, it is the most abundant of the odd-numbered heavy lanthanides. The principal current source are some of the ion-adsorption clays of southern China. Some of these have a rare-earth composition similar to that found in xenotime or gadolinite. Yttrium makes up about two-thirds of the total by weight; holmium is around 1.5%. The original ores themselves are very lean, maybe only 0.1% total lanthanide, but are easily extracted. Holmium is relatively inexpensive for a rare-earth metal with the price about US$ 1000 per kg.
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