Universal Alloy Corporation is a leader in providing extruded high performance aluminium products for aeronautic applications. In order to remain competitive and reach more customers, UAC constantly needs to develop and improve their engineered products. Scandium gives the opportunity to significantly improve alloy properties and hence has a huge potential for use in future high performance aeronautical aluminium alloys.
The Australian company CleanTeQ is a leader in environmental mining technologies. CleanTeQ has recently discovered, in Australia, the largest Scandium source in the world. With its unique sustainable technology, Clean TeQ will be able to extract Sc at a reduced cost and with reduced impact on the environment. The reduced extraction cost will translate to a significant drop in market price for Sc, making it viable to engineer and manufacture products. Current global production of Sc is 10,000 tonnes/year, largely dominated by China. Clean TeQ requires forward orders of 25,000 tonnes in order to commence viable mining operations in Australia. As such, Clean TeQ currently invests in research projects with the aim of securing long-term customers. One of the most promising uses of Sc is as an alloying element in high strength aluminium alloys.
