General Chat / Discussion, page-25

"Aluminium-scandium alloy is the material of choice where a lightweight, high-strength material with thermal resistance and good welding properties is needed," Rio Tinto Aluminium vice-president for sales and marketing Tolga Egrilmezer said.

Rio Tinto has developed a process to extract scandium oxide from the waste streams from its Sorel Tracy plant which produces titanium dioxide feedstock, pig iron and ferrous powders from ore from the Havre-Saint-Pierre mining complex in eastern Quebec province.

The plant under construction in Sorel Tracy will have a production capacity of 3 t/yr of scandium oxide. This would give it a 10-20pc share of total global production, which is currently concentrated in Asia-Pacific and Russia.

Scandium has been used in niche and defence applications for decades and more recently in clean energy production. But alloys represent the largest potential growth area.