Cerium: the essentials

Metallic cerium is prepared by reduction techniques, such as by reducing cerous fluoride with calcium, or by electrolysis of molten cerous chloride or other cerous halides.

Cerium is an iron-grey lustrous metal. It is malleable, and oxidises very readily at room temperature, especially in moist air. Except for europium, cerium is the most reactive of the rare-earth metals. It slowly decomposes in cold water, and rapidly in hot water. Alkali solutions and dilute and concentrated acids attack the metal rapidly. The pure metal may ignite when scratched with a knife.

It is the most abundant of the rare earth metals and is found in minerals including allanite, monazite, cerite, and bastnaesite. There are large deposits found in India, Brazil and the USA.


Cerium: historical information

Cerium was discovered by Wilhelm von Hisinger, Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Martin Klaproth in 1803 at Sweden, Germany. Origin of name: named after the asteroid Ceres which discovered in 1801, 2 years before the element.

Cerium was discovered in 1803 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger and independently by Martin Klaproth. It was isolated from a mineral from an iron mine at Bastn°s.

Cerium around us Read more »


Cerium is never found in nature as the free element. Cerium is found in the ores monazite sand [(Ce, La, etc.)PO4] and bastn°site [(Ce, La, etc.)(CO3)F], ores containing small amounts of all the rare earth metals. Other ores include allanite and samarskite. It is difficult to separate from other rare earth elements.

Abundances for cerium in a number of different environments. More abundance data »
Location ppb by weight ppb by atoms Links
Universe 10 0.09 Chemical elements abundance by weight in the universe on a miniature periodic table spark table
Crustal rocks 60000 8900 Chemical elements abundance by weight in the earth's crust on a miniature periodic table spark table

Physical properties Read more »

Heat properties Read more »

Crystal structure Read more »

The solid state structure of cerium is: hcp (hexagonal close-packed).

Cerium: orbital properties Read more »

Cerium atoms have 58 electrons and the shell structure is The ground state electronic configuration of neutral Cerium is [Xe].4f1.5d1.6s2 and the term symbol of Cerium is 1G4.



For many purposes it is not particularly necessary to separate the metals, but if separation into individual metals is required, the process is complex. Initially, the metals are extracted as salts from the ores by extraction with sulphuric acid (H2SO4), hydrochloric acid (HCl), and sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The ceric ion, Ce(IV) is more easily hydrolysed than the lanthanide (III) ions and therefore precipitates as a salt upon treatment with an oxidizing agent such as KMnO4.

Pure cerium is available through the electrolysis of a mixture of molten CeCl3 and NaCl (or CaCl2) in a graphite cell which acts as cathode using graphite as anode. The other product is chlorine gas.

Cerium isotopes Read more »

There do not appear to be many applications for Ce isotopes although Ce-140 is used for the production of the radioisotope Ce-141 which is used for medical research purposes.

Table. Stables isotopes of cerium.
Isotope Mass
(atom %)
spin (I)
moment (μ/μN)
136Ce 135.907140 (50) 0.185 (2) 0
138Ce 137.905985 (12) 0.251 (2) 0
140Ce 139.905433 (4) 88.450 (51) 0
142Ce 141.909241 (4) 11.114 (51) 0

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