UC RUSAL had announced that for the first time, the company is producing scandium oxide with concentrations that exceed 99 percent. The process technology delivers high-purity product with market rates of up to USD $2,000 per kilogram, promising real advances in aluminium alloys. Those improvements extend to applications in both defense and a range of consumer markets. These include solid oxide fuel cells in the energy sector, and intriguing possibilities for 3D printing.

Scandium oxide is a rare-earth metal with a high melting point that, when combined with aluminium, delivers a metal with superior heat resistance. This latest news builds on decades of innovation by Russian experts who helped to position RUSAL for this latest breakthrough. Ryan Castilloux, a rare-earth metals industry analyst and founder of Adamas Intelligence, notes the former Soviet Union's role in discovering defense applications for scandium during the Cold War. Those advances in aircraft and weaponry systems evolved into the use of scandium-aluminium alloys in consumer sporting goods, including baseball bats and bicycle frames, golf clubs, ski poles and firearms. But scandium is expensive and that limits its use in high-quality alloys. This is the challenge RUSAL scientists are continuing to solve.

Castilloux notes there are about 1,200 passenger aircraft built each year, with aluminium accounting for about two-thirds of the weight of each 75,000-kilogram plane produced. It seems simple, but thousands of fasteners needed to secure conventional aluminium alloy panels to the fuselage add weight, while the option to weld scandium-aluminium alloyed products removes their load without compromising safety.

Every kilogram reduction in weight delivers 3,000 to 3,800 liters in fuel savings across the life of the vehicle – which is also why the automotive industry will benefit from scandium-aluminium advances, and RUSAL continues to pursue them as it expands its pilot project and plans increased production.

The announcement comes after three years of research at a RUSAL aluminium smelter in the Urals, where work on extracting scandium from red mud began in 2013. Red mud is a waste byproduct of aluminium production, created in the process of bauxite mining that delivers alumina to the industry. It is not easy to dispose of red mud, which is leading to more research in the hope of uncovering useful applications.

Experts at RUSAL Engineering and Technology Centre have already developed a unique carbonization technology for red-mud scandium extraction that has no negative effect or unintended consequences for alumina production. So far, the pilot project in the Urals has delivered 96 kilograms of scandium per year, following a project investment of USD $1 million (64 million rubles). What RUSAL scientists intend to do, moving forward, is to continue refining the production process and reduce manufacturing costs.

Because of RUSAL's integrated approach – the company produces its own raw materials used to make the scandium oxide – the company expects the final costs of scandium-aluminium alloys made at RUSAL smelters to be reduced and highly competitive in global markets. That holds especially true for energy and transportation sectors seeking new solutions that align with environmentally sustainable goals.