Scandium is one of the rare chemicals, that can be found in houses in equipment such as colour televisions, fluorescent lamps, energy-saving lamps and glasses. The use of scandium is still growing, due to the fact that it is suited to produce catalysers and to polish glass.
The main application by volume is in aluminium-scandium alloys for the aerospace industry and for sports equipment (bikes, baseball bats, etc.) which rely on high performance materials. It has been shown to reduce solidification cracking during the welding of high strength aluminium alloys.

Scandium in the environment

Scandium can rarely be found in nature, as it occurs in very small amounts. Scandium is usually found only in two different kinds of ores. Thortveitite is the primary source of scandium with uranium mill tailings by-products also being an important source. World production amount to only 50 kg per year. There is no estimate of how much is potentially available.
Scandium is only the 50th most abundant element on hearth, it is distributed widely, occurring in trace quantities in over 800 minerals. The blue color of the aquamarine variety of beryl is thought to be caused by scandium.
Only about 3% of plants that were analysed for scandium shows its presence, and even those amounts were tiny, with vegetable having only 5 ppb although grass has 70 ppb.

Health effects of scandium

Effects of scandium on the environment

1. Better Brain Function

Your brain does its best work when your potassium level is maintained. Go a long time without enough potassium and your brain could end up paying the price. It’s best to avoid the situation altogether by ensuring you’re getting adequate potassium.

In order to get the best and most noticeable results, try to get the recommended amount of potassium each day, which is 3.5 grams. It may involve cutting out processed food and stressing fresh fruits and vegetables, but it’s worth the effort and will pay dividends in the form of better brain health.

2. Better Muscle Function

Your muscles do a lot to help you get through your day, and if they’re not firing on all cylinders it’s going to be hard to get through your daily activities without feeling fatigued. Whether you’re trying to build lean muscle mass or just trying to keep your muscles healthy for life, potassium plays a role.

One symptom of low metabolism is muscle weakness and damage, so in order to keep your muscle as healthy as possible, look to foods that are high in potassium, and stock up on them each time you’re at the grocery store. These include bananas of course, as well as avocados, raisins, and dried apricots.

3. Lower Risk of Heart Problems

Taking in a sufficient amount of potassium will put you at a lower risk of developing heart problems like stroke and heart disease. If you’ve already been diagnosed with a heart problem, you’ve likely been told to watch your level of potassium.

What’s interesting is that many of the foods that are rich in potassium also contain antioxidants and other minerals that will help your heart and lead to greater overall healthiness. To complete your heart health profile be sure you’re getting adequate amount of exercise each day, such as a walk, strength training, or yoga.

4. Maintains Fluid Balance

Getting enough potassium each day helps keep your internal fluids balanced correctly. Potassium is just one part of the equation, and you’ll want to make sure you’re getting all of your important minerals to maintain a balance of electrolytes in your bloodstream.

You’ll want to watch how much sodium you’re taking in, since many of the foods found in restaurants, fast food joints, and pre-packaged foods contain a lot of low-grade salt. Making your own food gives you control over how much sodium it contains. Calcium is another mineral to watch in order to maintain a healthy fluid balance in the body.

5. Stronger Bones

Potassium is one key to the healthy bone puzzle that you don’t want to forget. Calcium generally gets the most attention when it comes to essential minerals for bone health, but you’ll need to keep an eye on more than just one, including potassium.

The body is a system of complex subsystems all working together to keep you moving. Bones don’t rely on just one mineral, but an array of vitamins and minerals in order to thrive. You probably don’t pay much attention to your bones until they start having problems, so it’s best to be proactive and help them stay healthy long before any problems arise.

6. Reduced Stress Levels

We could all use a little less stress in this modern world of ours, and a proper potassium level is key to handling the triggers of everyday life. You may not even notice when you’re low on potassium and it’s causing excess stress because it may seem normal to you now, or you may have labeled yourself as a stressful person.

Because potassium is used by every cell in your body to continue on with its function, it only stands to reason that when you’re not getting enough you won’t be able to cope as well with stress.

7. Improved Blood Pressure Numbers

High blood pressure is definitely something to be concerned about, and there’s a reason why your doctor checks it each time you go in for a check-up. Getting the right amount of potassium each day will help lower your blood pressure, and should be used in conjunction with a blood pressure conscious diet and lifestyle.

There are several serious conditions that high blood pressure is a precursor for, including heart attacks, strokes, and diabetes. Don’t leave yourself susceptible to these potentially life-ending conditions. Focus on your potassium intake until it becomes a habit.

8. Increased Metabolism

Potassium helps knock out a sluggish metabolism and gets it back on track to natural levels of effectiveness. If you’ve ever had trouble losing weight while dieting, it could have been due to a slow metabolism brought on by, or worsened by, low potassium levels.

Getting enough potassium sets the stage for other minerals to do their job. Think of the vitamins and minerals you take in each day as a team designed to help you perform at your best. In order for the team to work properly, each team member must show up and do their job. Miss one component and it all works inefficiently and tends to break down.

9. Improved Nervous System

Your nervous system benefits greatly from regular consumption of foods rich in potassium. You may not be able to spot this benefit when you start getting more potassium, but running a shortage of potassium will produce symptoms that are identifiable.

This is a complex system that is responsible for sending signals throughout your body, and helping you interact with the world around you. It’s not something we generally give much attention to, and if you treat it right with adequate potassium from the foods you eat, it will treat you better in return.

10. Prevents Muscle Cramps

One sign that you might be low on potassium is that your muscles are cramping for no apparent reason. If you’ve overused a muscle and it cramps up on you, that is understable, and may not be the result of too little potassium. But if you experience muscle cramps in muscles that haven’t been pushed to their max, you may want to put some attention on your potassium intake.

Muscle cramps may not be a huge problem, but preventing them with potassium is easy enough. Muscle cramps and twitches can also be used as an early sign that your potassium levels are low. Take action to correct this imbalance and you should see an improvement in symptoms.

Chlorine’s benefits fall into five major categories:

• disinfection
• pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
• public safety
• crop protection
• every day life

First, disinfection. Before chlorine, a drink of water could kill you. Fortunately, since the advent of water chlorination, these epidemic diseases, which once killed tens of thousands, have been virtually wiped out in the United States, Europe and other developed nations.

Hailed as one of history’s greatest public health advances, water made safe by chlorination has also contributed to a 50 percent-plus increase in life expectancy and a dramatic decline in infant mortality rates.

Just as water is essential to life, chlorine is essential to safe water. This fundamental fact is tragically illustrated every day by the more than 25,000 people around the world who die each day from diseases associated with dirty drinking water, according to the World Health Organization.

In addition, one only needs to look to the cholera epidemic in Peru that took thousands of lives in the late 1980s after the country stopped chlorinating its water out of concerns over exposures to Trihalomethanes (THMs). This tragedy clearly illustrates that as far as safe water is concerned, the real dangers the world faces without the benefits of chlorine chemistry far outweigh the hypothetical risks of chlorinated compounds.

Aside from its essential role in water purification, chlorine is also one of the most effective and economical germ-killers against a wide array of life-threatening infections, viruses and bacteria, such as HIV, salmonella, E. Coli, and campylobacter.

Simply put, nothing cleans like chlorine. Homes, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and other public places such as nursing homes, schools, day care centers, resorts, spas, and cruise ships are all made cleaner and safer thanks to chlorine.

Chlorine also is a cornerstone of modern medicine. Today, about 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals contain or are manufactured with chlorine. These drugs include vitamins and medicines that treat heart disease, cancer, AIDS, ulcers, arthritis, pneumonia, depression, diabetes, allergies and colds, ear infections, malaria, and meningitis to name a few. Almost one-third of central nervous system drugs contain chlorine, while 98 percent of gastrointestinal medications use chlorine.

Chlorine also makes possible a wide variety of medical equipment. An estimated 25 percent of all medical devices in hospitals contain or are made with chlorine. Among them are IV and blood bags, X-ray and mammography film, syringes, oxygen tents, diagnostic instruments, sterile tubing packaging, coolers for organ transplants, surgical sutures, and artificial blood vessels.

Chlorine helps improve human health in other ways too. About 96 percent of all crop protection chemicals use chlorine in the manufacturing process. Thanks to these chemicals, society can count on a wide selection of nutritious and low-cost grains and produce. It is estimated that chlorine-reliant crop protection chemicals contribute to a 23 – 40 percent increase in production yield. Clearly, without chlorine’s help in controlling pests, diseases and weeds, there would be far more food shortages and failed crops all over the world.

The products of chlorine chemistry not only save lives, they make the world a much safer place. Chlorine chemistry has helped make possible some of the most important public safety advances in recent years, such as bullet-resistant vests that have saved thousands of police officers lives, and the special plastic known as “bullet-resistant glass” that provides protection in security vehicles, police cars and bank teller windows. Chlorine also helps fire fighters “take the heat,” by contributing to the manufacture of fire-resistant clothing and helmets.

And though you might not have realized it, chlorine makes everyday life a lot safer. Seat belts and airbags, two of the most important devices in automobile safety, are both possible thanks to chlorine chemistry.

Chlorine also helps make our everyday lives a lot more enjoyable and productive. Used to make one of the world’s most widely used and versatile plastics — polyvinyl chloride (or PVC) — chlorine plays a role in everything from car upholstery to card tables, garden hoses to golf bags, rain coats to recreational equipment and wallpaper to window frames.

As a major factor in the technological advances that have revolutionized communications, chlorine chemistry contributes to the production of the microprocessors and wires in computers, computer disks, and the plastic housings for computers, keyboards and telephones.

Virtually every part of the home is touched by chlorine’s benefits. From the ground up, many are constructed and decorated with chlorine-related products such as vinyl siding, windows and plumbing pipes; nylon carpeting, house paint, and fiberglass insulation. Inside the home, chlorine contributes to everything from clean, disinfected tap water, to household cleaners and bleach, to food packaging and plastic wraps, to televisions.

Traveling away from home, chlorine is there nearly every step of the way, contributing to the construction of automobiles, aircraft and trains. Even space vehicles and rocket fuel depend on chlorine chemistry.

When you think about it, the many benefits of chlorine chemistry can be summed up in three words: Chlorine Saves Lives. And when you think a little more, it’s readily apparent that life simply would not be the same without chlorine.

But chlorine’s benefits do not just exist in the present; they will extend into the future, particularly where the environment and human health are concerned.

The pulp and paper industry’s switch to elemental chlorine-free (ECF) bleaching provides a clear example of how chlorine chemistry can be part of the answer to improving our environment, while maintaining economic growth. Through the use of chlorine dioxide, elemental chlorine-free bleaching represents the best of both worlds by virtually eliminating the presence of dioxin in mill waste water and pulp products, while still providing the highest quality recyclable white paper and saving precious forest resources.

Elemental chlorine-free bleaching also appears to offer significant environmental advantages over TCF. Specifically, recent evidence indicates that TCF pulp manufacture increases wood consumption by about 10 percent. This means that if pulp and paper mills were TCF, the annual increase in forest resources required would equal about 100 million mature trees. Furthermore, TCF reduces paper’s recyclability by damaging cellulose fibers.

Though society tends to quickly forget, chlorine chemistry over the years has provided other solutions that have allowed us to minimize or eliminate risks and improve the environment. For example, DDT, although now banned, helped rid malaria from much of the world decades ago. Today, two other products of chlorine chemistry — polyvinyl chloride plumbing pipes and house paints based on titanium dioxide — are helping to reduce the public’s exposure to lead.

In the future, chlorine chemistry will make possible other advancements in productivity, environmental protection and human health that will benefit the world community.

Already chlorine chemistry has proved Thomas Malthus wrong. Thanks to modern crop protection chemicals — the overwhelming majority of which are based on processes using chlorine — hardly anyone in the more affluent nations of the world has experienced malnutrition or starvation.

The health benefits of phosphorus are not restricted to one category, as it has a number of critical functions for other body parts as well:

Bone Formation:Phosphorus is a vital part of the growth process, as well as the maintenance of bones and teeth. It works in association with calcium to create strong bones, which can withstand the normal wear and tear of human life. It also helps in boosting the health of your gums and tooth enamel. It also helps in relieving serious problems like bone loss or the loss of mineral density, also known as osteoporosis. This mineral lays the foundation of a strong skeletal structure to ensure health and functional living. One of the recent discoveries of phosphorous also link it to heart health, meaning that with a proper intake, you can better protect yourself from a range of cardiovascular diseases.

Digestion: Phosphorus plays an important role in facilitating effective digestion in the human body. It does this by stimulating the digestion of riboflavin and niacin in an efficient way. These two vitamins are also essential for human health, so any way that their uptake can be maximized is a good thing. These two varieties of vitamin B are responsible for everything from energy metabolism to neurological and emotional response systems. Beyond the uptake of other vitamins and minerals, phosphorous directly clears up indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, and generally tones up the digestive system for regular, healthy bowel movements. This increases the health of the digestive system, as well as that of the kidneys, since the toxins are being eliminated from the body, rather than recycling through the kidneys and stressing that system.

Excretion and Urination: Phosphorus plays an important role in keeping the kidneys healthy. It does this by ensuring the proper release of waste from kidneys through the process of urination and excretion. By increasing the quantity and frequency of urination, the body is able to balance its levels of uric acid, excess salts, water, and even fat, since urine is usually about 4% fat. Phosphorous encourages the healthy balance of all fluids and materials that are eliminated from the body, thereby helping the entire body remain healthy and toxin-free.

Weakness: Phosphorous has the ability to remove minor health problems like muscle weakness, numbness, fatigue and similar ailments. Normal levels of phosphorous in the body are a great way to remain fit and active. A normal amount can be approximately 1200 mg for adults, according to experts and from suggestions of various health practitioners. Sexual weakness can also be cured with healthy supplementation of phosphorous into the body, so issues like loss of libido, frigidity, impotence, and sperm motility can be boosted by having an adequate supply of phosphorus in your system.

Brain Function: Since phosphorous is an essential element found around as well as inside the cells of the brain, it is obviously responsible for important functions. Proper levels of phosphorous guarantee proper brain function and cognitive growth and development. Studies have linked a phosphorus deficiency to an increased risk of cognitive malfunction, and the early onset of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Protein Formation: Phosphorus is one of the most important element in the creation of proteins, which further help in the process of reproduction. It also facilitates the maximum utilization of proteins in the human body to ensure proper growth of cells, along with their repair when necessary. In the same manner, phosphorus also helps our bodies utilize carbohydrates as well as fats. The metabolism of proteins is what keeps our body growing and maintaining itself as the wear and tear of the years continues. It is one of the most essential parts of human metabolism, so phosphorus’ stimulating effect is vital to our overall health.

Cell Repair: Phosphorus also contributes to the repair process and maintenance of various body cells which suffer from daily wear and tear. It ensures that body cells are developed properly and remain active for impressive overall health. This contribution mainly comes in the form of helping to create protein and stimulating the correct hormones to react accordingly around the body to stimulate metabolic activity.

Hormone Balance: The health benefits of phosphorus may be considered vital for regulating the balance of hormones in the human body. It ensures that hormones, especially those required for good reproductive health, are always present in appropriate, balanced amounts. Phosphorus does this by directly interacting with the endocrine glands of the body and helps to regulate the creation and release of hormones. The hundreds of hormones in our body play extremely important roles in all of our health issues, and phosphorus is an irreplaceable part of that control system.

Energy Extraction: Phosphorus aids in the process of energy extraction by stimulating the process of metabolism of different nutrients. Furthermore, it helps in the flow of energy and its efficient usage by different organ systems, some of which is due to its ability to absorb vitamins so efficiently.

Chemical Reactions: Phosphorus acts as a participant or co-factor in a number of chemical reactions taking place inside the body. Also, it facilitates the proper utilization of various nutrients entering the body. All in all, be sure to always include phosphorus in your diet, you won’t get far without it!