 Discovery Information
|
| Who: Lars Nilson |
| When: 1879 |
| Where: Sweden |
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| Name Origin
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| From Scandinavia |
| "Scandium" in different languages. |
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| Sources
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| Occurs mainly in the minerals thortveitile, thortveitite ((Sc,Y)2Si2O7), gadolinite and euxenite ((Y,Ca,Ce,U,Th)(Nb,Ta,Ti)2O6), located in Scandinavia and Madagascar. Trace amounts can be found in over 800 minerals. Also in some tin and tungsten ores.
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| World production of scandium is in the order of 2,000 kg per year as scandium oxide. The primary production is 400 kg while
the rest is from stockpiles of Russia created during the cold war. The production of metallic scandium is in the order of 10 kg per year.
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|
| Abundance
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| Universe: 0.03 ppm (by weight) |
| Sun: 0.04 ppm (by weight) |
| Carbonaceous meteorite: 65 ppm |
| Earth's Crust: 26 ppm |
| Seawater: |
| Atlantic surface: 6.1 x 10-7 ppm
|
| Atlantic deep: 8.8 x 10-7 ppm
|
| Pacific surface: 3.5 x 10-7 ppm
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| Pacific deep: 7.9 x 10-7 ppm
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| Uses
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| The main application by volume is in aluminium-scandium alloys for the aerospace industry and for sports equipment (bikes, baseball bats, firearms, etc.) which rely on high performance
materials.
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| It is also used in high-intensity lights (scandium iodide added to mercury-vapour lamps produces a highly efficient artificial light source that resembles sunlight and allows good
colour reproduction with TV cameras), lightbulbs, leak detectors and seed germinating agents.
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| The original use of scandium-aluminium alloys were in the nose cones of Soviet Union submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The strength of the resulting nose cone was
enough to enable it to pierce the ice cap without damage, so enabling a missile launch while still submerged under the Arctic
ice cap.
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|
| History
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| Dmitri Mendeleev used his periodic law, in 1869, to predict the existence of, and some properties of, three unknown elements, including one
he called ekaboron .
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| Lars Fredrick Nilson and his team, apparently unaware of that prediction in the spring of 1879, were looking for rare earth
metals. By using spectral analysis, they found a new element within the minerals euxenite and gadolinite. They named it scandium,
from the Latin Scandia meaning "Scandinavia", and in the process of isolating the scandium, they processed 10 kilograms of
euxenite, producing about 2.0 grams of a very pure scandium oxide (Sc2O3).
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| Per Teodor Cleve of Sweden concluded that scandium corresponded well to the hoped-for ekaboron, and he notified Mendeleev of this in August.
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| Fischer, Brunger, and Grienelaus prepared metallic scandium for the first time in 1937, by electrolysis of a eutectic melt
of potassium, lithium, and scandium chlorides at a temperature of 700 to 800°C. Tungsten wires in a pool of liquid zinc were the electrodes in a graphite crucible. The first pound of 99% pure scandium metal was not produced until 1960.
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| Notes
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| Scandium is not attacked by a 1:1 mixture of nitric acid(HNO3) and 48% HF.
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| Hazards
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| Scandium metal power is combustible and presents a fire hazard. |
