Thulium: Oxide Reduced with Aluminium in Flowing Argon and the Vapour Condensed (CN 104152695 B)

Pellets of thulium oxide and aluminium are fed into an induction furnace at 1700 °C. The aluminium takes the oxygen and stays behind as slag. Thulium boils off as vapour, and a stream of argon carries it into a water-cooled tank where it condenses to metal. Result: thulium metal, 99.5 % of the thulium recovered. No vacuum pump is needed: the moving argon sweeps the vapour away as fast as it forms. Source: Zhang, Dou et al. (Northeastern University), Chinese patent CN 104152695 B (2014), Example 1. Not given: batch size, the form of the aluminium, pellet size, the purity of the thulium. Picture: Wikimedia Commons.