In the late 18th century, a Finnish chemist named Johan Gadolin was sent an unusual black rock discovered in a quarry in Ytterby, near Stockholm.
The find was thought to contain tungsten, but Gadolin announced it in fact contained a “new earth”, a previously unknown mineral substance. “Gadolin’s yttria” would become known as the first discovery of a rare earth compound, and among the elements it yielded was the silvery metal now known as “yttrium”.
Today, yttrium has huge strategic value in the production of the computer chips that are the backbone of AI. It is also one of the niche metals at the centre of a raging geopolitical storm.
您已阅读4%（640字），剩余96%（14546字）包含更多重要信息，订阅以继续探索完整内容，并享受更多专属服务。