Dysprosium is a chemical element with the symbol Dy and the atomic number 66.
Its name comes from the Greek 汛耒考羽老ό考牝而羊ς / dus-pr車sitos, "difficult to obtain".
Dysprosium is a rare earth metal, silver gray in appearance. Like other members
of the lanthanide family, it is malleable, ductile, and soft enough to be cut
with a knife. It is fairly stable in the air.
It cost a little more than 10 euros per kilogram in 2003, against more than 320
in 2011
It is an element whose use seems to be developing rapidly. Its soluble salts are
considered to be moderately toxic and its insoluble salts as non-toxic. The
pharmacological, toxicological and ecotoxicological properties of dysprosium
chloride salts were evaluated in the 1960s, with the conclusion that their acute
delayed toxicity and the symptoms they induce are comparable to those of other
members of the same chemical group10, without impacts. visible in terms of
histology, growth or haematological values (on animals exposed for 12 weeks).
But like holmium and erbium chlorides, dysprosium chloride has a depressant
effect and induces death produced by respiratory paralysis associated with
cardiovascular collapse10. Contact with the eye (experimentally) leads to
transient conjunctivitis and ulceration10. It seems to have no short and medium
term effect on healthy skin, but on abraded skin it causes abnormally deep scars
with hair loss. Like its chemical colleagues, as a foreign body (experimentally
administered intradermally) it provokes an immune reaction which is reflected in
particular by nodules with giant cells and the formation of crystals10.
Tested as [166Dy] DyCl3 (with its radioactive isotope [166Dy]), it was found to
be cytotoxic and genotoxic in the bone marrow (and therefore myelosuppressive),
it was therefore proposed in 2004 as a possible radiochemotherapy agent for the
treatment of certain cancers (myelomas, blood cancers) in humans (after initial
tests in laboratory mice) 11.
Although data are still lacking on its systemic toxicology in humans and animals
(as for lithium (Li) and zirconium (Zr)) and the chemical counterparts of
dysprosium that are other "rare earths" such as yttrium (Y), neodymium (Nd),
praseodymium (Pr), gadolinium (Gd), lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), europium (Eu),
lithium (Li ) and zirconium (Zr)), it is proposed to use it to improve the
mechanical properties of alloys, including ※absorbable§ (more than actually
biodegradable) magnesium12 alloys intended to be surgically implanted in the
human body13. According to a recent study (2010), however, it is less cytotoxic
than lanthanum and cerium
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rhenium germanium zirconium cadmium hafnium
barium lithium beryllium strontium calcium
Tantalum gadolinium samarium yttrium ytterbium
Lutetium praseodymium holmium erbium thulium dysprosium
terbium europium lanthanum cerium neodymium scandium
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