Hafnium (Hf)

Hafnium is a ductile metal with a brilliant silver luster. Its properties are considerably influenced by presence of zirconium impurities. Of all the elements, zirconium and hafnium are two of the most difficult to separate. Although their chemistry is almost identical, the density of zirconium is about half of hafnium. Very pure hafnium has been produced, with zirconium being the major impurity.

Hafnium has been successfully alloyed with iron, titanium, niobium, tantalum, and other metals. Hafnium carbide is the most refractory binary composition known, and the nitride is the most refractory of all known metal nitrides (m.p. 3310C). At 700 degrees C hafnium rapidly absorbs hydrogen to form the composition HfH1.86.

Hafnium is resistant to concentrated alkalis, but at elevated temperatures reacts with oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, boron, sulfur, and silicon. Halogens react directly to form tetrahalides.

The name derives from the Latin hafnia for Copenhagen. An element named celtium was erroneously claimed to have been discovered in 1911 by the French chemist Georges Urbain in rare earth samples, until the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, predicted hafnium's properties using his theory of electronic configuration of the elements. Bohr argued that hafnium would not be a rare earth element, but would be found in zirconium ore. Hafnium was discovered by the Dutch physicist Dirk Coster and the Hungarian physicist George von Hevesy in 1923, while working at Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen.

Hafnium was discovered by Dirk Coster, a Danish chemist, and George Charles de Hevesy, a Hungarian chemist, in 1923. They used a method known as X-ray spectroscopy to study the arrangement of the outer electrons of atoms in samples of zirconium ore. The electron structure of hafnium had been predicted by Niels Bohr and Coster and Hevesy found a pattern that matched. Hafnium is difficult to separate from zirconium and is present in all of its ores. It is obtained with the same methods used to extract zirconium.

From Hafinia, the Latin name for Copenhagen. Many years before its discovery in 1923 (credited to D. Coster and G. von Hevesey), Hafnium was thought to be present in various minerals and concentrations. On the basis of the Bohr theory, the new element was expected to be associated with zirconium.

It was finally identified in zircon from Norway, by means of X-ray spectroscope analysis. It was named in honor of the city in which the discovery was made. Most zirconium minerals contain 1 to 5 percent hafnium.

It was originally separated from zirconium by repeated recrystallization of the double ammonium or potassium fluorides by von Hevesey and Jantzen. Metallic hafnium was first prepared by van Arkel and deBoer by passing the vapor of the tetraiodide over a heated tungsten filament. Almost all hafnium metal now produced is made by reducing the tetrachloride with magnesium or with sodium (Kroll Process).