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Scandium Scandium Is A Chemical Element With Symbol SC and Atomic Number 21. A Silvery-White

Scandium is a silvery-white metallic transition metal discovered in 1879 in Scandinavia. It has historically been classified as a rare earth element. Scandium is present in many rare earth deposits but is only extracted from a few mines worldwide due to its low availability. Its main application is in aluminum alloys used in aircraft where it improves strength.

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Luiz Jerome Solis Cornejo
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51 views3 pages

Scandium Scandium Is A Chemical Element With Symbol SC and Atomic Number 21. A Silvery-White

Scandium is a silvery-white metallic transition metal discovered in 1879 in Scandinavia. It has historically been classified as a rare earth element. Scandium is present in many rare earth deposits but is only extracted from a few mines worldwide due to its low availability. Its main application is in aluminum alloys used in aircraft where it improves strength.

Uploaded by

Luiz Jerome Solis Cornejo
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Scandium Scandium is a chemical element with symbol Sc and atomic number 21.

A silvery-white metallic transition metal, it has historically been sometimes classified as a rare earth element, together with yttrium and the lanthanoids. It was discovered in 1879 by spectral analysis of the minerals euxenite and gadolinite from Scandinavia. Scandium is present in most of the deposits of rare earth and uranium compounds, but it is extracted from these ores in only a few mines worldwide. Because of the low availability and the difficulties in the preparation of metallic scandium, which was first done in 1937, it took until the 1970s before applications for scandium were developed. The positive effects of scandium on aluminium alloys were discovered in the 1970s, and its use in such alloys remains its only major application. The global trade of the pure metal is around a hundred pounds a year on average.[3] The properties of scandium compounds are intermediate between those of aluminium and yttrium. A diagonal relationship exists between the behavior of magnesium and scandium, just as there is between beryllium and aluminium. In the chemical compounds of the elements shown as group 3, above, the predominant oxidation state is +3. HISTORY Dmitri Mendeleev, creator of the periodic table, predicted the existence of an element ekaboron, with an atomic mass between 40 and 48 in 1869. Lars Fredrik Nilson and his team detected this element in the minerals euxenite andgadolinite. Nilson prepared 2 grams of scandium oxide of high purity.[18][19] He named the element scandium, from the Latin Scandia meaning "Scandinavia". Nilson was apparently unaware of Mendeleev's prediction, but Per Teodor Cleve recognized the correspondence and notified Mendeleev.[20] Metallic scandium was produced for the first time in 1937 by electrolysis of a eutectic mixture, at 700800 C, of potassium, lithium, and scandium chlorides.[21] The first pound of 99% pure scandium metal was produced in 1960. The use for aluminium alloys began in 1971, following a US patent.[22] Aluminium-scandium alloys were also developed in the USSR.[23] Laser crystals of gadolinium-scandium-gallium garnet (GSGG) were used in strategic defense applications developed in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the 1980s and the 1990s.[24][25] Scandium is mainly used for research purposes, although scandium iodide is added to mercury vapour lamps to produce a highly efficient light source resembling sunlight, which is important for indoor lighting and night-time colour television screens. The radioactive isotope 46Sc is used as a tracing agent in refinery crackers for crude oil. However, the potential for scandium is great because it has almost as low a density as

aluminium and has a much higher melting point, so it has attracted the interest of spacecraft designers. Uses Scandium is added to aluminum to create a very strong alloy that is used in the aerospace industry. The Russian military aircraft MiG-21 and MiG-29 utilized this material. Due to the high cost, alloys of titanium are much more commonly used in aircraft. Scandium alloys are also used in some high performance sporting equipment. This includes baseball bats, racing bicycles and lacrosse sticks. There is at least one gun making company that uses scandium alloys in their revolvers. Scandium iodide, is used with sodium iodide to create gas-discharge lamps. They are a powerful light source and are commonly used to replicate sunlight for television cameras. A radioactive isotope of scandium is used on oil rigs as a tracing agent to assist in crude oil analysis. Scandium is mainly used for research purposes, although scandium iodide is added to mercury vapour lamps to produce a highly efficient light source resembling sunlight, which is important for indoor lighting and night-time colour television screens. The radioactive isotope 46Sc is used as a tracing agent in refinery crackers for crude oil. However, the potential for scandium is great because it has almost as low a density as aluminium and has a much higher melting point, so it has attracted the interest of spacecraft designers.
Name: Scandium Symbol: Sc Atomic Number: 21 Atomic Mass: 44.95591 amu Melting Point: 1539.0 C (1812.15 K, 2802.2 F) Boiling Point: 2832.0 C (3105.15 K, 5129.6 F) Number of Protons/Electrons: 21 Number of Neutrons: 24 Classification: Transition Metal Crystal Structure: Hexagonal 3 Density @ 293 K: 2.989 g/cm Color: silvery 1.36 Scandium, Electronegativity Period Number: 4 Group Number: 3

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