Scandium

Notable characteristics

Scandium is a rare, hard, silvery, rough very dark F.

The rarity of scandium is not an arbitrary fact. The thermonuclear reactions that produce the elements in this range of vanadium) being rarely produced, and thus much less common. The production of the odd-numbered elements in this range result from much less common thermonuclear reactions, as is explained elsewhere.

Applications

Since it is not a very common metal, scandium does not have many applications. If it were more common, it might be useful in the making of aircraft and spacecraft structures, probably alloyed with other metals.

It is used in lacrosse sticks; a light yet strong metal is needed for precise accuracy and speed. Backcountry tent manufacturers sometimes use scandium alloys in tent poles. U.S. gunmaker Smith & Wesson produces a small, lightweight revolver with a frame composed of scandium alloy and a titanium cylinder.^[1]

Approximately 20 kg (as Sc₂oil refineries as a tracing agent. ^[2]

The main application of scandium by weight is in aluminium-scandium titanium, being much more common, and similar in lightness and strength, is much more widely used, with tons found in some aircraft, especially military ones.

When added to aluminium, scandium substantially lowers the rate of recrystallization and associated grain-growth in weld heat-affected zones. Aluminium, being a face-centred-cubic metal, is not particularly subject to the strengthening effects of the decrease in grain diameter. However, the presence of fine dispersions of Al₃Sc does increase strength by a small measure, much as any other precipitate system in aluminium alloys. It is added to aluminium alloys primarily to control that otherwise excessive grain growth in the heat-affected zone of weldable structural aluminium alloys, which gives two knock-on effects; greater strengthening via finer precipitation of other alloying elements and by reducing the precipitate-free zones that normally exist at the grain boundaries of age-hardening aluminium alloys.

The original use of scandium-aluminium alloys was in the nose cones of some USSR submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The strength of the resulting nose cone was enough to enable it to pierce the ice-cap without damage, and so, enabling a missile launch while still submerged under the Arctic ice cap.

organic chemistry.

History

ekaboron .

Lars Fredrick Nilson and his team, apparently unaware of that prediction in the spring of 1879, were looking for grams of a very pure scandium oxide (Sc₂O₃).

Per Teodor Cleve of Sweden concluded that scandium corresponded well to the hoped-for ekaboron, and he notified Mendeleev of this in August.

Fischer, Brunger, and Grienelaus prepared metallic scandium for the first time in 1937, by graphite crucible. The first pound of 99% pure scandium metal was not produced until 1960.

Occurrence

Scandium is distributed sparsely on earth, occurring only as trace quantities in many thorium have been extracted.

Scandium is more common in the sun and certain stars than on Earth. Scandium is only the 50th most common element on earth (35th most abundant in the Earth's crust), but it is the 23rd most common element in the sun.

The beryl is thought to be caused by scandium impurities in it.

Isolation

Thortveitite and kolbeckite are the primary mineral sources of scandium. calcium.

Scandium market

World production of scandium is in the order of 2,000 kg per year, generally as a by-product of uranium and nickel-cobalt-copper or PGE mining. Consumption is in the order of 5,000 kg, and typically is consumed in bicycle frames in Sc-Al alloys.

The present main source of scandium metal to meet this shortfall is from the military stockpiles of the former Soviet Union (mainly in the country of Ukraine), which were extracted from uranium tailings. There is no primary production in the Americas, Europe, or Australia, although gigantic scandium deposits are associated with uranium, cobalt laterite deposits and associated with ultramafic rocks worldwide.

Scandium can also be extracted from tantalum residues, tungsten processing wastes, tin slags and a variety of other such industrial waste streams, and it is sometimes recovered from rare earth ores, particularly the rare earth oxide deposits of Bayan Obo, China.

The strength and commerciality of the scandium market is yet to be demonstrated as it is a specialty metal and a single producer could corner the supply with minimal tonnage production. The price in 2006 of 99.0% scandium oxide is of order of US$700 per kilogram ^[3]

Compounds

The most common titanium. Thus scandium is sometimes seen as the scandium oxide, Sc₂O₃, and as scandium chloride, ScCl₃.

Isotopes

Main article: isotopes of scandium

Naturally occurring scandium is composed of 1 stable radioactive isotopes have half lives that are less than 4 hours, and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 2 minutes. This element also has 5 meta states with the most stable being ^44mSc (t_½ 58.6 h).

The isotopes of scandium range in titanium isotopes.

See also

References

• Los Alamos National Laboratory – Scandium

1. ^ Small Frame (J) - Model 340PD Revolver. Smith & Wesson.
2. ^ ^{a b} C.R. Hammond in CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics 85th ed., Section 4; The Elements
3. ^ Scandium United States Geological Society, 2006

Scandium compounds

Scandium minerals compounds

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