RARE EARTH METAL AND ITS PURIFICATION METHOD

The main objective of the invention is to provide a rare earth metal and its purification method. The method comprises: placing a rare earth metal rod vertically in the vacuum or protective atmosphere, heating locally the upper part of rare earth metal rod to melt to form melting zone, moving down the melting zone, stopping heat when the melting zone reaching the setting position, where is 1cm away from the rod bottom, and cutting off two ends of the re-solidified rod to obtain purified rare earth metal. The rare earth metal rod is placed vertically in present invitation, the top-down moving speed of the metallic impurities in melting zone is faster than that in the condition of the metal rod placed horizontally, it can be separated before the solidifying of the molten metal, and the purity of rare earth metal is improved. Due to increasing moving speed of the metallic impurities, the moving speed of melting zone can be increased, and then the purification period can be shortened. Meanwhile, the expensive tantalum crucible is not needed in present invention; conventional zone refining equipment can satisfy the technical requirement, so that the purification cost is very low.