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The transition metals have played an important role in human history. It was these elements that were responsible for the Bronze and Iron Ages, during which advances in tools and weapons were made. Today humans are beginning to take advantage of the properties of transition metals located at the left most positions of the d-block on the periodic table. (Jones, L., 2000) One d-block metal that presents new technological avenues in the development of human tools is scandium. Although universally present in the earth’s crust, scandium is found only in trace amounts in minerals. (Scandium Information Center, 2003). Despite its scarcity, scandium has become an important human resource and has many uses. Scandium was discovered by Lars Fredrick Nilson, a Swedish chemist, in 1878. Nilson discovered scandium, while attempting to produce a sample of pure ytterbia, another transition metal, from 10 kilograms of the mineral euxenite. (It’s elemental, 2003) Through a series of decompositions, Nilson observed that the molecular weight of the compounds he was working with was slightly less than he would have expected. This suggested the presence of an unknown element. He gave the element its name on the basis that it had, at that time, only been found in minerals present on the Scandinavian Peninsula. (Nilson, 1880) Although Nilson is credited with the discovery of scandium, it was not until 1937 that the first metallic scandium was produced. Furthermore, it was not until 1960 that the first pure scandium was produced using more refined processing techniques. (It’s elemental, 2003) The name scandium is misleading because scandium is widely distributed in the earth’s crust, and is the 50th most abundant element on the planet. However, it is only found in minute quantities in over 800 types of minerals. Its discovery in Scandinavia is perhaps due to the fact that scandium is a main component in the rare mineral thortveitite, Sc2Si2O7, which is only found in this region of the world.
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