Friday, February 7, 2014
Uses for Cerium Oxide
Cerium oxide is an oxide of cerium, which is a rare earth metal, encountered on the periodic table. Cerium oxide is usually an off-white powder. It is also often called ceric oxide. The most common use of cerium oxide is as a glass and crystal abrasive, but several other industries also apply the compound in different ways.
Abrasive for Polishing Jewels
The most common use of cerium oxide is as an abrasive for fine polishing. It is frequently used to polish precious and semiprecious stones to a fine finish, and also as an abrasive agent in repairing scratches in these stones.
Glass Industry
Cerium oxide is also used as a fine abrasive in the polishing and grinding of precision lenses. Opticians often use it for this purpose. However, it is also useful in polishing all kinds of precision glasswork such as mirrors and machine lenses. Another use that the compound commonly sees is as a light filtration coating on lenses and as a UV protective coating on certain kinds of glass. This is due to its abilities as an excellent lector of ultraviolet light.
Ceramics
Cerium oxide is a key ingredient in the production of high quality ceramics of all kinds. It is used to build semiconductors, dental ceramics and even in high precision applications such as ceramic components for the aerospace industry and fuel cell manufacture. Cerium oxides main utility in the ceramics industry comes from the fact that it improves stability, wear-resistance and temperature-resistance when used in the manufacturing process of oxide ceramics.
Catalyst
Catalytic converters in cars often contain cerium oxide as a much cheaper alternative to platinum. This is because cerium is very effective at converting poisonous carbon monoxide gas into relatively harmless carbon dioxide. It also helps reduce the amount of nitric oxide that is emitted with a cars exhaust.
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