The name derives from the Greek prasios for "green" and didymos for "twin" because of the pale green salts it forms. Praseodymium was discovered by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer (Baron von Welsbach) in 1885, who separated it and the element neodymium from a didymium sample (didymium had previously been thought to be a separate element).
Praseodymium was discovered by Carl F. Auer von Welsbach, an Austrian chemist, in 1885. He separated praseodymium, as well as the element neodymium, from a material known as didymium. Today, praseodymium is primarily obtained through an ion exchange process from monazite sand ((Ce, La, Th, Nd, Y)PO4), a material rich in rare earth elements.
From the Greek word prasios, green, and didymos, twin. In 1841 Mosander extracted the rare earth didymia from lanthana; in 1879, Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated a new earth, samaria, from didymia obtained from the mineral samarskite. Six years later, in 1885, von Welsbach separated didymia into two others, praseodymia and neodymia, which gave salts of different colors. As with other rare earths, compounds of these elements in solution have distinctive sharp spectral absorption bands or lines, some of which are only a few Angstroms wide.
Historical Atomic Weights
Historical Isotopic Abundances
| Year |
Isotope |
Abundance (uncertainty) |
Reference |
| 1975, 141Pr, 1, doi:10.1351/pac197647010075 |