Frank Harold Spedding was a Canadian-American chemist. He was a renowned expert on rare earth elements, and on extraction of metals from minerals. The uranium extraction process helped make it possible for the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs.

The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths or, in context, rare-earth oxides, and sometimes the lanthanides, are a set of 17 nearly indistinguishable lustrous silvery-white soft heavy metals. Compounds containing rare earths have diverse applications in electrical and electronic components, lasers, glass, magnetic materials, and industrial processes.