Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: Element prices and abundances Summary: A crude compilation of market prices for chemical elements and their abundance on Earth, Moon, and chondritic meteors. Reply-To: stolfi@jumbo.UUCP (Jorge Stolfi) Followup-To: sci.space Distribution: world Organization: DEC Systems Research Center Keywords: element prices, element abundances, moon, asteroids, space mining X-Edited: Last modified on Sat Jan 3 03:13:48 1987 PST by stolfi X-Reliability-Rating: 2.25 [HURRAH! THE LINE EATER IS DEA For those who like numerical trivia, here are the cash prices and abundances for most chemical elements. These numbers were compiled from very disparate sources by a totally unqualified amateur (that's me) who certainly added quite a few typos and unit conversion errors along the way. Ergo, don't stake the future of your company on these data. Additions, corrections, and pointers to better sources will be most welcome. "Price" is a recent (~84-86) market or list price, in dollars per pound, for the element in reasonably pure form. Note that prices of the most expensive elements were extrapolated from the per-gram price, so they may be grossly inaccurate. Also, some data from [6] may be lab reagent prices, which may be a lot higher than industrial ones. Note that rare earth elements are expensive partly because it is very difficult to separate them from each other. Therefore, the market value of rare earth mixtures (as may be produced by smelting lunar or asteroidal ores) may be much lower than what the numbers below may indicate. Element abundances are in parts per million (mass). Unless noted otherwise, Moon data are the largest of the values reported in [1,p.12] and [4] (and therefore are not supposed to add to 1000000). Those for the Earth crust and carbonaceous chondrites (type I) are from reference [4]. Element abundances for the Earth crust have little economic significance, since their concentration in viable ore deposits is often hundreds or thousands times the crustal average. These levels of enrichment are unlikely to have occurred on less differentiated bodies, such as the Moon and asteroids, except of course for metal/stone separation on the latter. PRICE ABUNDANCES (PPM) AN ELEMENT ($/lb) EARTH MOON CHOND. -- ------------- -------- ------- ------- ------- 01 Hydrogen (?) 1400 200 22000 02 Helium (?) (?) 35 [7] (?) 03 Lithium 22.70 [3] 20 12 1.3 04 Beryllium 196.00 [2] 2 2 0.04 05 Boron (?) 10 2 5 06 Carbon (?) 250 140 37000 07 Nitrogen (?) 20 100 2700 08 Oxygen (?) 466000 470000 453000 09 Fluorine (?) 650 140 190 10 Neon 700.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 11 Sodium (?) 28000 5200 5500 12 Magnesium 1.48 [2] 21000 63000 96000 13 Aluminum 0.50 [2] 81000 140000 8500 14 Silicon 0.69 [3] 277000 224000 103000 15 Phosphorus (?) 700 2300 1400 16 Sulfur (?) 260 1700 62000 17 Chlorine (?) 130 14 260 18 Argon (?) (?) (?) (?) 19 Potassium 240.00 [6] 26000 4600 500 20 Calcium (?) 36000 111000 10600 21 Scandium 23000.00 [6] 20 75 5 22 Titanium 5.70 [2] 4400 73000 400 23 Vanadium 4.94 [2] 140 50 57 24 Chromium 3.75 [2] 100 3300 2200 25 Manganese 0.80 [2] 950 2200 1700 26 Iron(pig) 0.10 50000 169000 184000 27 Cobalt 12.50 [2] 25 25 480 28 Nickel 3.29 [2] 70 15 10400 29 Copper 0.69 [2] 50 11 140 30 Zinc 0.42 [2] 70 15 320 31 Gallium 236.00 [2] 15 4.5 10 32 Germanium 477.00 [2] 1.5 0.1 34 33 Arsenic 1.97 [3] 1.8 0.05 2.0 34 Selenium 9.00 [2] 0.1 27 27 35 Bromine (?) 2.5 0.1 5 36 Krypton 3600.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 37 Rubidium 900.00 [6] 90 3.4 2.3 38 Strontium 8.00 [6] 390 170 8 39 Yttrium 150.00 [6] 30 120 1.6 40 Zirconium 7.00 [6] 170 370 11 41 Niobium 17.00 [2] 20 21 0.5 42 Molybdenum 17.97 [2] 1.5 0.5 1.6 44 Ruthenium 1820.00 [2] 0.01 --- 0.7 45 Rhodium 13200.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.2 46 Palladium 1790.00 [2] 0.01 0.006 0.6 47 Silver 90.00 [2] 0.05 0.008 0.4 48 Cadmium 1.31 [2] 0.2 0.004 1.0 49 Indium 38.00 [2] 0.05 --- 0.09 50 Tin 5.82 [2] 3 0.6 1.6 51 Antimony 1.40 [2] 0.2 0.007 0.15 52 Tellurium 20.00 [6] 0.01 0.02 3.3 53 Iodine (?) 0.5 --- 0.6 54 Xenon 1500.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 55 Cesium 400.00 [2] 2 0.1 0.19 56 Barium 20.00 [6] 400 200 4 57 Lanthanum 370.00 [6] 30 18 0.19 58 Cerium 900.00 [6] 60 54 0.63 59 Praseodymium 450.00 [6] 8 11 0.09 60 Neodymium 900.00 [6] 30 46 0.42 62 Samarium 2300.00 [6] 6 15 0.13 63 Europium 23000.00 [6] 1 1.9 0.05 64 Gadolinium 1800.00 [6] 5 20 0.24 65 Terbium 900.00 [6] 1 3.6 0.04 66 Dysprosium 1400.00 [6] 3 25 0.22 67 Holmium 3600.00 [6] 1 4.9 0.06 68 Erbium 1400.00 [6] 3 14 0.14 69 Thulium 4500.00 [6] 0.5 1.9 0.02 70 Ytterbium 300.00 [6] 3 13 0.13 71 Lutetium 30000.00 [6] 0.5 1.9 0.02 72 Hafnium 500.00 [6] 3 13 0.26 73 Tantalum 30.00 [2] 2 1.7 0.02 74 Tungsten 9.00 [3] 1 0.3 0.14 75 Rhenium 3700.00 [6] 0.001 --- 0.04 76 Osmium 1970.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.45 77 Iridium 5830.00 [2] 0.001 --- 0.40 78 Platinum 4960.00 [2] 0.01 --- 0.9 79 Gold 4620.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.18 80 Mercury 4.17 [2] 0.08 --- 1 81 Thallium 8.00 [6] 0.5 --- 0.14 82 Lead 0.25 [2] 13 1.2 2.9 83 Bismuth 5.22 [2] 0.2 --- 0.13 90 Thorium 10.00 [6] 7 2 0.04 92 Uranium(oxide) 15.61 [2] 2 0.5 0.01 A few rare isotopes: 01 Deuterium 450.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 02 Helium-3 315000.00 [7] (?) 0.005 [7] (?) 06 Carbon-13 350000.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) Entries from the list above worth more than $200/lb: 06 Carbon-13 350000.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 02 Helium-3 315000.00 [7] (?) 0.005 [7] (?) 71 Lutetium 30000.00 [6] 0.5 1.9 0.02 63 Europium 23000.00 [6] 1 1.9 0.05 21 Scandium 23000.00 [6] 20 75 5 45 Rhodium 13200.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.2 77 Iridium 5830.00 [2] 0.001 --- 0.40 78 Platinum 4960.00 [2] 0.01 --- 0.9 79 Gold 4620.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.18 69 Thulium 4500.00 [6] 0.5 1.9 0.02 75 Rhenium 3700.00 [6] 0.001 --- 0.04 67 Holmium 3600.00 [6] 1 4.9 0.06 36 Krypton 3600.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 62 Samarium 2300.00 [6] 6 15 0.13 76 Osmium 1970.00 [2] 0.005 --- 0.45 44 Ruthenium 1820.00 [2] 0.01 --- 0.7 64 Gadolinium 1800.00 [6] 5 20 0.24 46 Palladium 1790.00 [2] 0.01 0.006 0.6 54 Xenon 1500.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 68 Erbium 1400.00 [6] 3 14 0.14 66 Dysprosium 1400.00 [6] 3 25 0.22 65 Terbium 900.00 [6] 1 3.6 0.04 60 Neodymium 900.00 [6] 30 46 0.42 58 Cerium 900.00 [6] 60 54 0.63 37 Rubidium 900.00 [6] 90 3.4 2.3 10 Neon 700.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 72 Hafnium 500.00 [6] 3 13 0.26 32 Germanium 477.00 [2] 1.5 0.1 34 01 Deuterium 450.00 [6] (?) (?) (?) 59 Praseodymium 450.00 [6] 8 11 0.09 55 Cesium 400.00 [2] 2 0.1 0.19 57 Lanthanum 370.00 [6] 30 18 0.19 70 Ytterbium 300.00 [6] 3 13 0.13 19 Potassium 240.00 [6] 26000 4600 500 31 Gallium 236.00 [2] 15 4.5 10 Happy dreams... REFERENCES [1] R. D. Johnson, ed. "Space Settlements: A Design Study." NASA SP-413 (1977), quoting data from [8]. [2] "Metal Statistics 1986", Fairchild Publications (1985 prices) [3] R. Packard, "Metal Bulletin Handbook 1986" Metal Bulletin Books, Ltd (UK) (1984 prices) [4] "Encyclopaedia Britannica" 15th edition (1974, printed 1986) Volume 17, page 940, Table 3: Abundance of the elements in... [6] "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" (a.k.a. "the Rubber Bible"), 66th edition (1986) [7] Barney B. Roberts, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc., 31(9), Oct. 1986, page 1499. As quoted by Paul Dietz in message <8611120617.AA02138@s1-b.arpa> [8] H. J. Ross Jr &c., "Compositional data for twenty two Apollo-16 samples." Proceedings of the 4th Lunar Science Conference, vol. 2 pp 1149--1158. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: Digital Equipment Corporation is (by and large) not responsible for the world economy being the mess it is, and has no (declared) plans to sell, manufacture, or develop philosopher's stones of any kind. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------