Press center menu
20 January 2021
Dalur Commissioned Mobile Sorption Units to Increase Scandium Output
In order to increase scandium output, Dalur, JSC (subsidiary of ARMZ Uranium Holding Co./Mining Division of ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation) commissioned mobile sorption units. «These units will be operated directly at fields of Dalmatovskoye deposit with good content of rare earth metals. Their commissioning will allow increasing scandium output. Two more sorption columns have also been installed at scandium production site,» Nikolay Lutsenko, Deputy Director for Production, Dalur, JSC, informed.
The project of associated extraction of scandium from product solutions of uranium mining company has being implemented since 2014, based on the decision of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation. The project called Creation of High-Tech Manufacturing of Aluminum-Scandium Ligature Using Products of In-situ Uranium Leaching won the tender of Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for the right to receive grant under the Development of Science and Technology national program. Dalur, JSC experts together with scientists of Ural Federal University developed the process itself.
«Product solutions containing both uranium and scandium are pumped from operating units by borehole pumps and sent for sorption processing. First sorption extraction of uranium takes place, and then solution is sent for scandium extraction. Special sorbent agents and methods for their regeneration were selected with an aim to obtain scandium concentrate without any additives of radionuclides, iron and silicon. Solvent refining of the primary concentrate helps to obtain 99.9% pure scandia. Use of another process patented by us allowed improving of high-tech product: aluminum-scandium ligature production from the primary concentrate,» Nikolay Poponin, Director General, Dalur, JSC reported. All the products of scandium processing, generated by the company, are in full compliance with the requirements of aerospace and machine-building industry. According to Nikolay Poponin, total volume of high-tech products to be produced within next four years, has already been contracted.
