Ever heard of the ruthenium rush, the bismuth bonanza or the indium stampede?
Demand for cellphones and flat-screen TVs is depleting global supplies of a host of uncommon metals. Indium is built into a billion consumer devices a year, for instance in phone displays, and prices have soared. Some estimates say reserves could run out within five years. Bismuth, used in lead-free solder, has doubled in price in two years, while the price of ruthenium, used in resistors and disc drives, has risen sevenfold in a year.
To meet demand, tech firms must mine the growing mountains of electronic waste to recover the materials, says R眉diger K眉hr of the United Nations University in Tokyo, which this week launched a global e-waste initiative. 鈥淭he recycling of trace metals is essential to ongoing production,鈥� he says.
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