Studies have pointed out that rhodium is the scarcest element on the earth, followed by gold, platinum and tellurium according to its proportion in the earth's crust and its importance to human society.
Rhodium Rhodium belongs to platinum group metals (platinum group metals also include platinum, palladium, iridium, osmium and ruthenium). Platinum group metals, like gold and silver, are rare and precious metals, and their content on the earth is very small. Platinum group metals are widely used in petroleum, automobile, electronics, chemical industry, atomic energy and environmental protection industries. They play a key role in these industries, so they are called "industrial vitamins". Rhodium is rare among platinum group metals, and its main use is as a catalyst for automobile exhaust purification, which can reduce the emission of harmful substances from automobiles. With the continuous increase of automobile production and the increasingly strict environmental protection standards, the demand for rhodium in the automobile industry will continue to increase in the future.
Tellurium tellurium is a rare element, and its content in the earth's crust is almost the same as that of gold, and it is also the least semiconductor element in the earth's crust. More than half of tellurium consumption is used in metallurgical industry to improve the properties of steel. Tellurium compounds are also the main raw materials for manufacturing solar thin film batteries. Tellurium will become one of the most important strategic resources in the coming decades.
Bismuth is recognized as a safe and nontoxic "green metal", which is widely used in medicine, semiconductors, superconductors, electronic ceramics and other fields. Because of its green characteristics, bismuth is expected to replace toxic metal lead in many fields. However, although the demand for bismuth is increasing, the output of bismuth is declining due to the limitation of resources.
Indium is a rare strategic metals, which is not only rarely distributed in the earth's crust, but also extremely dispersed, and only exists as an impurity in metal ores such as zinc. The demand for indium in LCD monitors, tablet computers and smart phone screens is dominant. In addition, it also has extremely important strategic value in solar cells, electronic information, national defense and military, aerospace, nuclear industry and other fields.
Antimony is a rare small metal with China's reserves and output ranking first in the world. Its main consumption fields are flame retardant, lead-acid battery, catalyst and glass industry. China has one third of the world's reserves and bears more than 90% of the world's antimony supply.
Tungsten is the hardest metal in the world, and it is irreplaceable in the fields of industrial drills and cutting tools, so it is called "the tooth of industry". Tungsten, antimony, tin and rare earth are called the four strategic resources of China.
As a new generation of semiconductor materials, gallium gallium is known as the "pillar of electronic industry" and widely used in smart phones, LED lights, solar power generation, military, medical and other fields.
Cobalt is known as "industrial monosodium glutamate" and is one of the very scarce strategic resources. Most cobalt is used as cathode material for lithium ion batteries. Each cell phone battery contains about 6.6 grams of cobalt, and each new energy vehicle needs 10 kilograms of cobalt. It can be seen that the demand for cobalt will increase explosively in the future.
Rare earth elements Rare earth elements are the general names of scandium, yttrium and lanthanide elements *** 17. Rare earth elements are widely used in national defense industry, metallurgy, machinery, petroleum, chemical industry, glass, ceramics, textile, leather, agriculture, animal husbandry and other fields. For example, in steel and nonferrous metals, as long as a very small amount of rare earth elements are added, the properties of metal materials can be obviously improved.