-Used as a core material for carbon arc lights used by the motion picture industry.

-Salts used to colour glasses and enamels; when mixed with certain other materials, praseodymium produces an intense clean yellow colour in glass.

-Component of didymium glass which is a colourant for welder's goggles.

-Misch metal, used in making cigarette lighters, contains about 5% praseodymium metal.

-Alloys

-In 1885, Carl Auer von Welsbach separated an "earth" called didymia obtained from the mineral samarskite into two earths, praseodymia and neodymia, which gave salts of different colours. The separation required the repeated fractionation of ammonium didymium nitrate.

- Discovered by Carl F. Auer von Welsbach in Austria in 1885.

-From the Greek words "Prasios Didymos" meaning "Green Twin."

-Praseodymium is never found in nature as the free element. Praseodymium 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. It is difficult to separate from other rare earth elements.

-Praseodymium exists in moderately abundant amounts (1-5%) in monazite ore of India, Brazil, Australia and Africa, bastnasite ore found in China and North America as well as in the ionic clays of Southern China.

-Praseodymium compounds exhibit an array of different colors from jet black to lime green. Like most rare earth elements Praseodymium is commercially available in its metal, oxide and carbonate forms.