Critical Minerals Library: Comprehensive Profiles for 60+ Minerals

Aluminum is the most abundant metallic element in the Earth's crust and the most widely used non-ferrous metal. It is prized for its low density, corrosion resi...

Antimony is a brittle, silvery-white metalloid critical to flame retardant compounds and military applications. China dominates global production, creating sign...

Arsenic is a metalloid most commonly recovered as a byproduct of copper and lead smelting. Its primary high-tech application is in gallium arsenide semiconducto...

Barite is a barium sulfate mineral valued for its high specific gravity and chemical inertness. It is primarily used as a weighting agent in oil and gas well dr...

Beryllium is an extremely lightweight, stiff metal with exceptional thermal properties, making it indispensable in aerospace, defense, and nuclear applications....

Bismuth is a post-transition metal often recovered as a byproduct of lead and copper refining. It is widely recognized as the least toxic heavy metal and serves...

Boron is a metalloid essential to glass manufacturing, agriculture, and advanced materials. Turkey holds the world's largest borate reserves and dominates globa...

Cerium is the most abundant rare earth element and a key component in automotive catalytic converters and glass polishing powders. It is a light rare earth elem...

Cesium is a soft, gold-colored alkali metal most notable for its use in atomic clocks, which form the basis of GPS satellite navigation and global telecommunica...

Chromium is an essential alloying element primarily used in stainless steel production, which accounts for the majority of global consumption. South Africa hold...

Cobalt is a critical battery metal essential for lithium-ion cathode chemistries used in electric vehicles and portable electronics. The Democratic Republic of ...

Copper is a highly conductive base metal fundamental to electrical infrastructure, renewable energy, and electrification. It is often called the metal of electr...

Dysprosium is a heavy rare earth element essential for maintaining the magnetic properties of neodymium permanent magnets at high temperatures. It is one of the...

Erbium is a heavy rare earth element best known for its use in erbium-doped fiber amplifiers that enable long-distance fiber optic telecommunications. Its uniqu...

Europium is the most reactive rare earth element and is essential for producing red and blue phosphors used in LED lighting, display screens, and fluorescent la...

Fluorspar, or calcium fluoride, is the primary source of fluorine for industrial use. It is essential in steelmaking as a flux to lower melting points and in th...

Gadolinium is a rare earth element with exceptional neutron absorption properties and unique magnetic behavior. It is widely used as a contrast agent in magneti...

Gallium is a technology metal critical to advanced semiconductor compounds including gallium arsenide and gallium nitride. These compounds are essential for 5G ...

Germanium is a critical technology metal essential for fiber optic networks, infrared optics, and advanced solar cells. It is transparent to infrared radiation,...

Graphite is a crystalline form of carbon and the dominant anode material in lithium-ion batteries, representing a larger share of battery mass than lithium itse...

Hafnium is a refractory metal always found alongside zirconium and separated during zirconium processing for nuclear applications. It has an exceptional ability...

Holmium possesses the highest magnetic moment of any naturally occurring element, making it useful in creating extremely powerful magnetic fields. Holmium laser...

Indium is a soft, silvery technology metal primarily used as indium tin oxide, the transparent conductive coating essential for virtually all touchscreens, flat...

Iridium is the most corrosion-resistant metal known and one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust. It is essential for growing single crystals used in ele...

Lanthanum is a light rare earth element widely used in petroleum cracking catalysts, optical glass, and nickel-metal hydride batteries for hybrid vehicles. It i...

Lead is a dense, soft base metal predominantly used in lead-acid batteries for automotive and backup power applications. Despite environmental concerns and regu...

Lithium is the lightest metal and the cornerstone of the rechargeable battery revolution powering electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage. Demand is pro...

Lutetium is the heaviest and rarest of the lanthanide rare earth elements. Its primary application is in lutetium oxyorthosilicate detectors used in positron em...

Magnesium is the lightest structural metal, approximately one-third lighter than aluminum, making it highly valuable for lightweighting in automotive and aerosp...

Manganese is essential in steelmaking, where it acts as a deoxidizer and alloying element, with virtually all steel containing manganese. It is increasingly imp...

Metallurgical coal, also known as coking coal, is an essential input for blast furnace steelmaking and cannot be substituted by thermal coal. It is heated to pr...

Neodymium is the most commercially important rare earth element, essential for neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets that are the strongest available. These ma...

Nickel is a versatile metal used predominantly in stainless steel but increasingly critical for high-energy-density lithium-ion battery cathodes in electric veh...

Niobium is a refractory metal with the most concentrated supply of any critical mineral, with Brazil accounting for roughly 90% of global production. Small addi...

Palladium is a platinum group metal primarily used in gasoline engine catalytic converters, where it converts harmful exhaust emissions into less toxic substanc...

Phosphate rock is the sole significant source of phosphorus, an essential nutrient for all life and a key component of agricultural fertilizers that support glo...

Platinum is a dense, precious metal with exceptional catalytic properties, making it essential for diesel emission catalysts, chemical processing, and emerging ...

Potash refers to potassium-bearing minerals and chemicals, predominantly potassium chloride, used primarily in agricultural fertilizers. It is one of the three ...

Praseodymium is a light rare earth element commonly alloyed with neodymium to produce the didymium used in high-performance permanent magnets. It imparts a dist...

Rhenium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust, produced exclusively as a byproduct of molybdenum and copper mining. It is essential for single-crys...

Rhodium is the rarest and most valuable of the platinum group metals, primarily used in three-way catalytic converters for gasoline vehicles where it reduces ni...

Rubidium is a soft, highly reactive alkali metal used primarily in specialized electronic and research applications. Rubidium atomic frequency standards are use...

Ruthenium is a platinum group metal used in electronics, particularly as a thin coating in perpendicular magnetic recording hard disk drives to increase data st...

Samarium is a rare earth element best known for samarium-cobalt permanent magnets that operate reliably at temperatures too high for neodymium magnets. These ma...

Scandium is a rare transition metal that dramatically improves the properties of aluminum alloys, increasing strength and weld resistance while maintaining low ...

Silicon is the foundational material of the semiconductor industry and the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust. High-purity polysilicon is essenti...

Silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any element, making it critical for electrical contacts, solar photovoltaic cell production, and e...

Tantalum is a highly corrosion-resistant refractory metal essential for miniaturized electronic capacitors found in smartphones, computers, and medical devices....

Tellurium is a rare metalloid most critically used in cadmium telluride thin-film solar panels manufactured by companies like First Solar. It is one of the rare...

Terbium is a heavy rare earth element used alongside dysprosium to enhance the high-temperature performance of neodymium permanent magnets. It produces the brig...

Thulium is the least abundant naturally occurring lanthanide rare earth element. When irradiated in a nuclear reactor, thulium-170 produces X-rays, enabling por...

Tin is a soft, silvery base metal essential for solder used in virtually all electronic circuit boards and semiconductor packaging. It is also widely used in ti...

Titanium combines exceptional strength-to-weight ratio with outstanding corrosion resistance, making it the premier structural metal for aerospace and defense a...

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal and is essential for cemented carbide tools that enable modern manufacturing and mining. China controls appr...

Uranium is the primary fuel for nuclear power plants, which provide approximately 10% of the world's electricity and a significant share of carbon-free baseload...

Vanadium is a transition metal predominantly used as a steel alloying element to increase strength and wear resistance. Its emerging role in vanadium redox flow...

Ytterbium is a heavy rare earth element increasingly important in high-power fiber laser technology used in industrial cutting, welding, and defense application...

Yttrium is classified with the rare earth elements due to similar chemical properties and co-occurrence in the same ore deposits. It is essential for yttrium al...

Zinc is the fourth most widely used metal globally, primarily employed in galvanizing steel to prevent corrosion. It is also essential for die-casting alloys, b...

Zirconium is a refractory metal prized for its exceptional corrosion resistance and low neutron absorption cross-section, making it the material of choice for n...