hygroscopic white crystal(s) [STR93] [ALD94]
Lutetium Acetate is the important raw materials for laser crystal, and also have specialized uses in ceramics, glass, phosphors, lasers. Stable Lutetium can be used as catalysts in petroleum cracking in refineries and can also be used in alkylation, hydrogenation, and polymerization applications. It can also be used as an ideal host for X-ray phosphors.
Lutetium(III) oxide is dissolved by adding 10g of lutetium(III) oxide to 500mL of 50% aqueous acetic acid and heating in a steam bath. Sometimes lutetium(III) oxide needs to be heated in a steam bath for a week before it is completely dissolved. If a small amount of lutetium(III) oxide fails to dissolve after a week of heating, it is filtered. The clear solution is heated on a 75C water bath to evaporate most of the solvent. After cooling, crystals are precipitated, filtered, transferred to a glass dish, and dried in a vacuum dryer with granular sodium hydroxide and magnesium perchlorate, resulting in hydrate. The hydrate crystals were placed in a vacuum drying gun (Abdelhaddon dryer) and dried under reduced pressure (under vacuum) at 75C to constant weight to obtain anhydrous lutetium (III) acetate.
