Metals Used in High Tech Are Becoming Harder to Find, Study Says
▻http://e360.yale.edu/digest/metals_used_in_high_tech_are_becoming_harder_to_find_study_says/4398
▻http://environment.yale.edu/content/images/00006518/yale-criticality-metals-3d-graphic-browser.jpg?1427467310
Metals critical to newer technologies such as #smartphones, infrared optics, and medical imaging will likely become harder to obtain in coming decades, according to Yale researchers, and future products need to be designed to make reclaiming and recycling those materials easier.
▻http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/metals-used-in-hightech-products-face-future-supply-risks
The study, the first to assess future supply risks to all 62 metals on the periodic table, found that many of the metals traditionally used in manufacturing — zinc, copper, aluminum, lead, and others — show no signs of vulnerability. But some metals that have become more common in technology over the last two decades, such as rare earth metals, are available almost entirely as byproducts of other elements, the researchers say.
▻http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_scarcity_of_rare_metals_is_hindering_green_technologies/2711
"You can’t mine specifically for them; they often exist in small quantities and are used for specialty purposes," said Yale scientist Thomas Graedel. "And they don’t have any decent substitutes." Metals such as lead are highly recycled because they’re often used in bulk. But recycling the relatively rare metals critical to modern electronics is far more difficult because they are used in miniscule amounts and can be difficult to extract from complex and compact new technologies, Graedel said.
