History

    The discovery of new rare-earth elements through the middle part of the 1800s prompted chemists to employ the same general procedures and philosophies when searching out more new elements in the series. For example, Carl Gustaf Mosader had shown that "pure" samples of ceria were actually contaminated with the oxide of a new element, lanthanum. Using the same line of reasoning, Mosander showed tha yttria could be fractioned into two new elements, erbium and terbium. It is not surprising , then, that scientists such as PEr Theodore Cleve (1840 - 1905) would take a second and more careful look at "pure samples of rare-earth oxides.

    Cleve's approach payed off in 1879 when he carefully fractionated samples of erbia, or erbium oxide. Following Marignac's procedure announced a year ealier, Cleve quickly separated ytterbia and scandia from the sample. The the truly original work began - resolving the remaining erbia even futher. In this instance, he knew the rose-colored oxide was a purified erbium, and there were the brownish and greenish precipitates that remained. The brown material was named holmia and the green thulia. Homia is the oxide form of holmium, and thulia is the same of thulium.

    J.L. Soret and M. Delafontaine had performed spectroscopic analyses on erbia a year earlier and reported seeing absorption bands for an element X. They failed to pull together sufficient evidence for a new element until Cleve announced his discovery of holmium, via holmia or holmium oxide.  (Jefferson Labs)

    Laboratory-grade holmia was not produced until 1911, and the pure metal was not isolated until even more recently.