Endangered Elements?
Nature’s “Sceptical Chymist” blog recent wrote about endangered elements.
Certainly in the context of sustainable, environmentally-responsible chemistry, this is an important issue along side questions of energy. I’ve heard that availability of cobalt might be a limiting factor in lithium-ion batteries. For example, is there enough of the element to put batteries in every car, truck, and vehicle to switch to electric/gas hybrids?
Chemistry seems like it’s headed for a variety of “endangered” shake-ups. Much of the materials we use, drugs, and all sorts of chemical products are based off of petroleum as a “feedstock.” Combine questions about oil availability and endangered elements, and it seems like certain classical chemistry routes will become increasingly more difficult.
So what do we as chemists do?
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Bhadresh — 1 year, 2 months ago.
Very interesting communication !!!
Can we consider Nickel, platinum, palladium also endagered element in line with Cobalt ???
Also producing this metal element from ore also is highly enegy intenssive and environment unfriendly and may be unsustainable when we start using it for large application where all human start using it such as catalytic converter.
will appreciate some facts and views to expand reality and direction to be explored around this elements.