570 



UNITED STATES MINERAL RESOURCES 



Molybdenum Co., more than 1,000,000 pounds of 

 tungsten concentrates, containing 0.05-0.08 percent 

 scandium, are produced annually as a byproduct of 

 molybdenum recovery at Climax, Colo. Work by the 

 U.S. Bureau of Mines (Ross and Schack, 1965) has 

 shown that about 85 percent of this scandium is 

 recoverable at a cost relatively modest in relation 

 to the value of scandium. The tungsten ore recov- 

 ered from this one deposit could thus supply 400- 

 700 pounds of scandium annually. 



Uranium deposits, even though they may have a 

 very low^ scandium content, are potential sources, 

 and indeed some scandium has been recovered from 

 uranium mills in the United States and Australia. 

 Recovery of scandium is made possible by its accu- 

 mulation in an iron sludge produced in mills vi^hich 

 use an organophosphate process for extraction of 

 uranium. This sludge, which may contain 0.1-0.2 

 percent scandium (Ross and Rosenbaum, 1962), can 

 be treated by methods described by Lash and Ross 

 (1961) and Ross and Schack (1965) to produce 

 scandium oxide. Some scandium was produced com- 

 mercially from sludge at a uranium mill in Utah, 

 but recovery was discontinued after 1964. Scandium 

 was recovered in Australia from Radium Hill ura- 

 nium ores. Baroch (1970) stated that uranium ores 

 are the best potential source of scandium, and that 

 as much as 30 pounds a day could be produced from 

 the domestic uranium mills, which were then using 

 the acid leach and clear liquor process. 



Phosphorites are another potential source of scan- 

 dium. Like the rare earths, scandium is released 

 from the phosphate ore during the wet-process pro- 

 duction of phosphoric acid. Altschuler, Herman, and 

 Cuttitta (1967) have estimated that 16 short tons 

 of scandium was available for recovery from the 

 phosphoric acid produced from Florida phosphorites 

 in 1964. The phosphorites represent a very large 

 resource of scandium; there are possibly several 

 hundreds of thousands of tons in the world's phos- 

 phate deposits (Eilertsen, 1965), but the probabil- 

 ity of its recovery from this source seems remote. 



The future sources of scandium will undoubtedly 

 be ores of other mineral commodities from which 

 scandium can be recovered as a byproduct. This 

 byproduct status thus ties the resources of scandium 

 directly to those of uranium, tungsten, and phos- 

 phate rock, which are discussed in separate chapters 

 of this report. 



PROBLEMS FOR RESEARCH 



The scandium that is now available as a byproduct 

 but not recovered is irrevocably lost. Under the 

 economic conditions of 1972, it is not likely that any 



recovery of byproduct scandium will be made unless 

 the demand increases. There is, however, no reason 

 why a few tons of scandium could not be produced 

 annually at less than market value from raw mate- 

 rials now processed in industry. Research into appli- 

 cations for scandium is therefore needed to utilize, 

 rather than lose, the scandium that is currently 

 available. The search for concentrations of the ele- 

 ment should continue, not only in natural materials, 

 but also in the waste products of the mineral in- 

 dustry. 



REFERENCES CITED 



Altschuler, Z. S., Herman, Sol, and Cuttitta, Frank, 1967, 

 Rare earths in phosphorites — Geochemistry and poten- 

 tial recovery, in Geological Survey research 1967: U.S. 

 Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 575-B, p. B1-B9. 



Baroch, C. T., 1970, Scandium, in Mineral facts and prob- 

 lems, 1970 ed.: U.S. Bur. Mines Bull. 650, p. 705-711. 



Borisenko, L. F., 1963, Scandium, its geochemistry and min- 

 eralogy: New York, Consultants Bur., 78 p. 



Eilertsen, D. E., 1965, Scandium, in Mineral facts and prob- 

 lems, 1965 ed.: U.S .Bur. Mines Bull. 630, p. 789-792. 



Frondel, Clifford, 1968, Crystal chemistry of scandium as 

 a trace element in minerals: Zeitschr. Kristallographie, 

 V. 127, p. 121-138. 



1970a, Scandium contents of ore and skarn minerals 



at Franklin, New Jersey: Am. Mineralogist, v. 55, p. 

 1051-1054. 



1970b, Scandium-rich minerals from rhyolitie in the 



Thomas Range, Utah: Am. Mineralogist, v. 55, p. 1058- 

 1060. 



Frondel, Clifford, Ito, Jun, and Montgomery, Arthur, 1968, 

 Scandium content of some aluminum phosphates: Am. 

 Mineralogist, v. 53, nos. 7-8, p. 1223-1231. 



Fryklund, V. C, Jr., and Fleischer, Michael, 1963, The 

 abundance of scandium in volcanic rocks, a preliminary 

 estimate: G<eochim. et Cosmochim. Acta, v. 27, no. 6, p. 

 643-664. 



Geach, R. D., 1963, Fluorspar, in Mineral and water resources 

 of Montana: U.S. 88th Cong., 1st. sess.. Senate Comm. 

 Interior and Insular Affairs, p. 65-67. 



Gulbrandsen, R. A., 1966, Chemical composition of phosphor- 

 ites of the Phosphoria Formation: Geochim. et Cos- 

 mochim. Acta, V. 30, no. 8, p. 769-778. 



Hawley, C. C, 1969, Geology and beryllium deposits of the 

 Lake George (or Badger Flats) beryllium area, Park 

 and Jefferson Counties, Colorado: U.S. Geol. Survey 

 Prof. Paper 608-A, 44 p. 



Larsen, E. S., 3d, 1942, The mineralogy and paragenesis of 

 the variscite nodules from near Fairfield, Utah, Pt. 3: 

 Am. Mineralogist, v. 27, no. 6, p. 441-451. 



Lash, L. D., and Ross, J. R., 1961, Scandium recovery from 

 uranium solutions: Jour. Metals, v. 13, no. 8, p. 555- 

 558. 



Murdock, T. G., 1963, Mineral resources of the Malagasy 

 Republic: U.S. Bur. Mines Inf. Circ. 8196, 147 p. 



Neumann, Henrich, 1961, The scandium content of some 

 Norwegian minerals and the formation of thortveitite, 

 a reconnaissance survey: Norsk. Geol. Tidsskr., v. 41, 

 p. 197-210. 



