Electric Cars and Smart Phones Trigger New Gold Rush

Both electric vehicle and smart mobile phone contain tungsten, such as oscillator in the mobile phone. Let’s see how electric vehicle and smart mobile phone trigger a new gold rush?

What materials are your objects made of? One thing that most of us may not have considered is that rich materials make modern life possible. Technology products such as smart phones, electric cars, big screen TVs and green energy power generation are all dependent on a range of chemical elements that most people have never heard of. Until the end of the 20th century, people were only curious about these high-tech products. But nowadays, we will feel uncomfortable if we miss any of them. This also reflects from the side that these chemical elements are indispensable. In fact, a single mobile phone contains more than one-third of the elements in the periodic table.

With the increase of people’ demands for these high-tech products, manufacturers’ demand for key production elements of these high-tech products increase as well. However, the supply of these elements is restricted by the factors of politics, economics and geography. Therefore, their price will fluctuate. There are also huge potential profits hidden which make the investment of mining a high-risk business. Now I am going to give some examples of elements which we are mainly dependent on. The prices of these elements have risen sharply (some have fallen) in the past few years.

Cobalt

Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. Like nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.

For centuries, cobalt has been applied to the production of the amazing blue glass and ceramic glazes. Today, it is also super alloy element of jet engine and one of the elements of mobile phones and electric vehicles’ key component. In the past few years, people’s demand for electric vehicles increases sharply. The number of global registrations has increased from 200,000 in 2013 to 750,000 in 2016. It has increase by more than two times. The sales of smart phones increase as well. In 2017, it was more than 1.5 billion.

In addition to the need of traditional industries, it can help increase cobalt price from 15 pounds per kilogram to 70 pounds per kilogram. Africa has been the largest source of cobalt, but increasing demand and concerns about supply security mean that new mines are open to the United States and other regions. However, in order to illustrate the fluctuation of the market, the increase in production in recent months has caused its price to fall by 30%.

Rare earth elements

Rare earth contains 17 kinds of metal elements. The 17 rare-earth elements are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y). Although these elements are known as are earth, we now know that they are not scarce. They are usually by-products of large-scale mining of iron, titanium or uranium. In recent years, their production has been dominated by China, and China provides more than 95% of global demand.

Rare earths can be used in electric vehicles and wind turbines. Both bismuth and antimony are crucial for the manufacture of powerful magnets in electric motors and generators. This magnet can also be found in all telephone speakers and microphones.

The prices of different rare earths vary widely and fluctuate greatly. For example, with the improvement of electric vehicles and wind power, the price of antimony oxide peaked at £93 per kg in the end of 2017, twice the mid-2016 price, and then fell back to about 40% higher than 2016. This volatility and unsafe supply mean that more countries have to find their own sources of rare earths.

Gallium

Gallium is an exotic element. In the metallic state, it can melt in hot weather (above 30 °C). However, when combined with arsenic to make gallium arsenide, it produces a powerful high-rate semiconductor for microelectronics that makes our phones so smart. Nitrogen (gallium nitride) can be applied to low energy illumination with the correct color, ie LED. Similarly, gallium is also produced primarily as a by-product of other metal mining, mainly from iron ore and zinc ore. But unlike some other metals, the price of gallium has more than doubled since 2016, and by May 2018 it was priced at £315 per kilogram.

Indium

Indium is one of the rare metal elements on earth, but you may see it every day because all table computers and touchscreens rely on a very thin layer of indium tin oxide. This element is mainly obtained as a by-product of zinc ore. This element is mainly obtained as a by-product of zinc ore, and obtaining 1 gram of indium may require mining 1,000 tons of ore. 

Although gallium is rare, it is still key component of electric devices because there are currently no other elements that can be used to make touch screens. However, scientists hope that a two-dimensional carbon form called graphene can provide a solution. After the sharp decline of indium prices in 2015, the market price in 2016-2017 has risen by 50% to around £350 per kilogram, mainly due to its application to screens of table computers.

Tungsten

The density of tungsten is high as twice as that of steel. In the past, tungsten was applied to thin tungsten wire of incandescent bulbs which can illuminate the home. Even though Led almost replaces the tungsten wire bulb, we can still have access to tungsten-related products every day. For example, together with cobalt and rhenium, tungsten makes our phones vibrate. These three "small and heavy" elements are used to support rotation of the motor inside our phone in order to generate vibration.

The combination of tungsten and carbon is known as tungsten carbide. It can be applied to the processing of metal parts in the aerospace, defense and automotive industries that is, the tungsten carbide is widely used as a cutting tool. Besides, it can also be used to make wear-resistance parts of drilling machines for oil and gas extraction, mining and tunneling. Tungsten can also be added to high performance steel.

Do you know other high-tech products around you contain tungsten?

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