Stockholm is the capital city of Sweden. Holmium is named after this city which is known as Holmia in Latin.
The element was discovered spectroscopically by Marc Delafontaine and Jacques-Louis Soret in 1878. Per Teodor Cleve, a Swedish chemist, discovered the element independently in 1879, and he named it after his hometown, Stockholm. The pure metal was isolated in 1911, by Otto Holmberg.
Holmium is a bright, soft, silvery white element. The element has some special magnetic properties and they enable holmium to be used in alloys for the production of magnets. Holmium magnets can, in fact, create the strongest magnetic fields. Holmium is also used in nuclear reactors.
Holmium is not generally seen as a free element in nature but is found in compounds in a number of minerals such as gadolinite and monazite.
It is commercially extracted from monazite and occurs in that mineral at a rate of about 0.05 per cent.
Holmium is mainly used in laser surgery. There are not many commercial uses for the element.
The atomic number of holmium is 67, and it is represented as Ho.
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