Discovery Information
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Who: Lars Nilson |
When: 1879 |
Where: Sweden |
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Name Origin
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From Scandinavia |
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Sources
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Occurs mainly in the minerals thortveitile, thortvetite, gadolinte and euxenite, 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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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
color 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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Notes
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Scandium metal power is combustible and presents a fire hazard. |
Scandium is not attacked 1:1 mixture of nitric acid(HNO3) and 48% HF.
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