The element’s name is derived from the Latin name for Scandinavia. The image reflects this with an ancient Scandinavian figurine and carved runic standing stone.

Fact Box

Uses

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-46 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.

History

Lime (calcium oxide, CaO) was the useful material obtained by heating limestone and used for centuries to make plaster and mortar. Antoine Lavoisier classified it as an ‘earth’ because it seemed impossible to reduce it further, but he suspected it was the oxide of an unknown element. In 1808, Humphry Davy tried to reduce moist lime by electrolysis, just as he had done with sodium and potassium, but he was not successful. So he tried a mixture of lime and mercury oxide and while this produced an amalgam of calcium and mercury, it was not enough to confirm that he’d obtained a new element. (Jöns Jacob Berzelius had conducted a similar experiment and also obtained the amalgam.) Davy tried using more lime in the mixture and produced more of the amalgam from which he distilled off the mercury leaving just calcium.