Scandium has been widely used as alloy material in the fields of aerospace, optics, transport, etc. Scandium is an effective grain refiner and it increases the recrystallization temperature in different alloys with its unique property.
The amount of Sc in the earth’s crust is 22ppm on average. Scandium is found in small amounts in other metal ores. Minerals containing Sc include monazite, bastnasite, ilmenite, rutile, bauxite, uraninite, etc.
Several researchers have employed different methods for determining the amount of scandium. These methods have several disadvantages like complex pretreatment procedure and long pretreatment time.
An Hyo Song, a researcher at the Institute of Analysis, has proposed a new method for determining scandium content in the sedimentary rock based apatite on the continental shelf using Ti as an internal standard element by wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRFS) technique, and established a sample preparation procedure and the parameters of equipment.
RSD of the proposed method was less than 5%. The average scandium content in the total survey area was 25ppm.
The proposed WDXRF technique can be applied to the studies of different geological materials containing less than 1% of scandium.
For more information, you can refer to his paper “Analytical Method for Determination of Scandium Distribution Characteristics in Sedimentary stratum on the Continental shelf by Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry” in “Journal of X-ray science and technology” (SCI).