The blue color of aquamarine gems is due to the presence of scandium. Scandium has only a very few uses, one of which is to make very bright mercury-vapor lamps that produce light that is remarkably similar to natural sunlight, which is important in the use of color television cameras.
Scandium is a light metal, with a very high melting point. Consequently, spacecraft designers have expressed an interest in using it as a building material.
It is also used in alkaline batteries. The first pound of pure scandium was not produced until Scandium is the 31 st most abundant element on Earth, according to Periodic Table , with about 22 parts per million abundance by weight in Earth's crust, according to Chemicool. Scandium is scattered thinly and has been found in over minerals. Within these minerals, scandium is found in its oxide form Sc 2 O 3 , also known as scandia or scandium oxide , according to Scandium Mining. There are many commercial uses for scandium even though the cost of scandium is typically high — several thousand dollars per kilogram for scandium oxide and up to a few hundred thousand dollars per kilogram for pure scandium, according to Chemistry Explained.
Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, inventor of the periodic table, predicted the existence and properties of scandium which he called "ekaboron" — similar to boron in , according to the New World Encyclopedia. Lars Fredrick Nilson, a Swedish chemist, when examining the spectra of the minerals euxenite and gadolinite, discovered the element in The element was named for the Latin word for Scandinavia, "Scandia," due to the minerals in which scandium was at that time found to exist only in the Scandinavian Peninsula, according to Peter van der Krogt , a Dutch historian.
Per Teodor Cleve, a Swedish chemist, made the link that the new element discovered by Nilson was the same as the proposed element described by Mendeleev. In the first attempt to isolate scandium, Nilson and his team processed 10 kilograms of euxenite and were able to produce about two grams of scandium oxide. Specific heat capacity is the amount of energy needed to change the temperature of a kilogram of a substance by 1 K.
A measure of the stiffness of a substance. It provides a measure of how difficult it is to extend a material, with a value given by the ratio of tensile strength to tensile strain.
A measure of how difficult it is to deform a material. It is given by the ratio of the shear stress to the shear strain. A measure of how difficult it is to compress a substance. It is given by the ratio of the pressure on a body to the fractional decrease in volume.
A measure of the propensity of a substance to evaporate. It is defined as the equilibrium pressure exerted by the gas produced above a substance in a closed system. This Site has been carefully prepared for your visit, and we ask you to honour and agree to the following terms and conditions when using this Site.
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Jump to main content. Periodic Table. Glossary Allotropes Some elements exist in several different structural forms, called allotropes. Glossary Group A vertical column in the periodic table. Fact box. Glossary Image explanation Murray Robertson is the artist behind the images which make up Visual Elements. Appearance The description of the element in its natural form. Biological role The role of the element in humans, animals and plants.
Natural abundance Where the element is most commonly found in nature, and how it is sourced commercially. Uses and properties. Image explanation. The image reflects this with an ancient Scandinavian figurine and carved runic standing stone. A silvery metal that tarnishes in air, burns easily and reacts with water.
Scandium is mainly used for research purposes. It has, however, great potential because it has almost as low a density as aluminium and a much higher melting point. An aluminium-scandium alloy has been used in Russian MIG fighter planes, high-end bicycle frames and baseball bats.
Scandium iodide is added to mercury vapour lamps to produce a highly efficient light source resembling sunlight. These lamps help television cameras to reproduce colour well when filming indoors or at night-time. The radioactive isotope scandium is used as a tracer in oil refining to monitor the movement of various fractions. It can also be used in underground pipes to detect leaks. Biological role. Scandium has no known biological role.
It is a suspected carcinogen. Natural abundance. Scandium is very widely distributed, and occurs in minute quantities in over mineral species. It is the main component of the very rare and collectable mineral thortveitite, found in Scandinavia.
Scandium can be recovered from thortveitite or extracted as a by-product from uranium mill tailings sandy waste material. Metallic scandium can be prepared by reducing the fluoride with calcium metal. It can also be prepared by electrolysing molten potassium, lithium and scandium chlorides, using electrodes of tungsten wire and molten zinc. Help text not available for this section currently.
Elements and Periodic Table History. In , Mendeleev noticed that there was a gap in atomic weights between calcium 40 and titanium 48 and predicted there was an undiscovered element of intermediate atomic weight. He forecast that its oxide would be X 2 O 3.
He extracted it from euxenite, a complex mineral containing eight metal oxides. He had already extracted erbium oxide from euxenite, and from this oxide he obtained ytterbium oxide and then another oxide of a lighter element whose atomic spectrum showed it to be an unknown metal.
This was the metal that Mendeleev had predicted and its oxide was Sc 2 O 3. Scandium metal itself was only produced in by the electrolysis of molten scandium chloride. Atomic data. Glossary Common oxidation states The oxidation state of an atom is a measure of the degree of oxidation of an atom.
Oxidation states and isotopes. Glossary Data for this section been provided by the British Geological Survey. Relative supply risk An integrated supply risk index from 1 very low risk to 10 very high risk. Recycling rate The percentage of a commodity which is recycled. Substitutability The availability of suitable substitutes for a given commodity. Reserve distribution The percentage of the world reserves located in the country with the largest reserves.
Political stability of top producer A percentile rank for the political stability of the top producing country, derived from World Bank governance indicators. Political stability of top reserve holder A percentile rank for the political stability of the country with the largest reserves, derived from World Bank governance indicators. Supply risk. Relative supply risk 9. Russia 3 USA Political stability of top producer Young's modulus A measure of the stiffness of a substance.
Shear modulus A measure of how difficult it is to deform a material. Bulk modulus A measure of how difficult it is to compress a substance. Vapour pressure A measure of the propensity of a substance to evaporate.
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