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Considered a critical mineral by countries including the United States, Canada and Australia, scandium is a rare, versatile and useful metal.
Scandium is the most effective known microalloying element that can strengthen aluminium, while also offering improved flexibility, resistance to heat and corrosion, and lighter weight.
For this reason, military and civilian aircraft have used aluminium-scandium alloys for decades to improve fuel economy, manoeuvrability and range. These alloys are used in the aerospace, energy (for solid oxide fuel cells), automotive, and 3D printing industries.
They’re also used in sporting equipment, such as baseball bats, lacrosse sticks and bicycle frames, because of their lightweight properties – bicycle manufacturers estimate that scandium reduces the weight of their aluminium frames by up to 15%.
Scandium can also be found in electronic ceramics, lasers, LED lighting, glass and many more applications where its unique properties make it a valuable addition.
Although it’s available all over the world, scandium is usually only found naturally in very small amounts, and is usually mixed up with other minerals and metals. So it can be hard to find, extract and process.
We’ve developed a new way to sustainably extract and produce high-purity scandium oxide from the waste streams of titanium dioxide production at our RTIT Quebec Operations, without the need for any additional mining. In May 2022, we produced the first batch of this high-purity scandium oxide at our commercial-scale demonstration plant in Sorel-Tracy, Canada, making us the first North American producer of this critical mineral.
The Burra™ project located in New South Wales, Australia, offers a long life, high-grade scandium oxide resource that has the potential to become a primary scandium operation in Australia.
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With the exception of the use of cookies (explained below), Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
Part 1 of this Privacy Policy contains the Rio Tinto Data Privacy Standard, which provides an overview of Rio Tinto’s approach to personal data processing. There is additional information in the appendices to the Data Privacy Standard, including information about disclosures, trans-border data transfers, the exercise of data subject rights and how to make complaints or obtain further information relating to Rio Tinto’s processing of your personal data.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us at digital.comms@riotinto.com).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.
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As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of this Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
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