While yttrium is is a fairly common element widely distributed across the earth it is so diluted and difficult to extract that it’s unprofitable to recover almost anywhere outside of China. Until at least as late as ten years ago China refined north of 99% of all commercially available yttrium. In the country’s centralized party’s risk-reward calculus despoiling a few hundred square kilometers of land (and trashing the health of who knows how many people) was an OK sacrifice in the name of progress. And lest you get all high and mighty do consider that to a large extent we owe our thanks to the decisions of those yesteryear Chinese politicians. Without China’s rare earths industry the high-tech gadgetry that we can’t live without would be affordable only to the very rich.

In this world of cutting edge electronics yttrium is utilized in the manufacture of sensors, lasers and as an additive in exotic alloys to improve strength and resistance to corrosion. Almost all of the yttrium that is mined is never actually isolated into its metallic form but is instead used as an oxide or turned into secondary compounds before being put to their end use. The little portion that is refined into its pure metallic form is actually made this way as an intermediate step before making oxides of even higher purity. The very highest grades are allowed to crystallize into thin sheets prior to being re-oxidized. That is at the exact step where Luciteria jumps in and says “Hey, stop! We want some of that!”

The sales manager at the lab we sourced this from was genuinely perplexed why anyone would want to spend money for this stuff. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯