Aroroy, Masbate—A professor of the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences has urged the government and the private sector to study the potential of mining scandium in the country, a rare element found in nickel ore.
“I discovered that the nickel we are selling to China contains scandium, which is more expensive than gold. We have a very good chance of becoming big on scandium,” university professor Carlo Arcilla said.
Scandium, which is considered a rare earth element, is used for high-technology batteries as well as to increase the heat tolerance of aluminum.
“Most of our airplanes are made of aluminum but you cannot weld it because of its low tolerance to heat. Russians have discovered that when you mix scandium and aluminum, it has a much higher heat tolerance,” he said.
“The market price of scandium is currently at $170 per gram,” Arcilla added.
The Philippines is one of the largest producers of nickel in the world, most of which are shipped to China.
Arcilla said the Department of Science and Technology has agreed to give P10 million in research fund to examine the scandium content of nickel ores in the country.
“The scandium issue is very important because if we can detect very high contents of it, then the next phase will be how to try to recover it given our existing technologies. If it cannot be recovered, too bad. But if we can do something, then we might be able to prevent the export of raw ores and then increase the value added. And that’s exactly the research that DoST and the mining companies should start funding,” he said.
Arcilla said China is currently the biggest producer of scandium.
“We should know how many percent we are shipping there without knowing. By the end of this year, we will quantify and then we will also study other potentials. We will also try to look at the presence of other rare earth elements,” he said.
“In my mind, we really have to develop our nickel industry for us to have steel. I am almost certain that every nickel mine has scandium. If we will be able to recover scandium, the economics for the nickel recovery will be increased. That would be for value adding,” added Arcilla.
