Most Expensive Metals Quiz

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Most Expensive Metals Quiz

by Cryptus

Created Oct 3, 2009 in Science
Game Plays 754

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	seanob:	Oct 4th, 2009 at 14:30 GMT	7 points
	i think plutonium and uranium should be on this list. plutonium costs in excess of $4000/gram

	Pyrophorus:	Oct 10th, 2009 at 17:01 GMT	6 points
	Molybdenum? No way. Molybdenum is cheap; probably cheaper than silver, and definitely cheaper than things like scandium, thulium, or lutetium. Also, you should axe technetium and make this the list of most expensive naturally-occurring metals (alternatively, non-radioactive, but I think some of these like platinum have some radioisotopes with very long half lives). Otherwise you invite a bunch of synthetic radioactives like plutonium and americium on to the list, as seanob points out. I would try to find a more reliable source for this list.

	Cryptus:	Oct 20th, 2009 at 17:01 GMT	4 points
	About the source, I can only find two actual lists on the web of the top 10 most expensive metals, and they are both exactly the same. The annoying thing about the two is that neither of them provide a source for their lists, so if you can find a better source, then please tell me about it, because it's bugging me as well!

	dj47:	Oct 20th, 2009 at 18:54 GMT	1 point
	I'm not too sure about some of these. I don't think Technetium is the most expensive. I would have thought Platinum or Rhodium was most expensive, I think you should recheck your sources. Oh and how is Molybdenum on there? Thats reasonably cheap.

	Pyrophorus:	Nov 1st, 2009 at 00:13 GMT	4 points
	Well, as a start, you can look at spot prices for commonly-traded precious metals: http://www.thebulliondesk.com/ The top ones now are rhodium, platinum, gold, iridium, osmium, and palladium (with ruthenium and silver being cheaper). Prices for precious metals are given per troy ounce (31.1g), so you can compare these values to say, price per pound or per kilogram.

	Pyrophorus:	Nov 1st, 2009 at 00:22 GMT	4 points
	Rare metals that aren't traded outside of industry (scandium, more uncommon rare earths, indium, gallium, rhenium) are harder to find prices for. http://www.minormetals.com/ has some prices, but click on the chart icon (squiggly line) to find out what the units are (eg. gallium is $/kilogram, but mercury is $/flask (76lbs Hg, an archaic unit)). Indium and gallium seem to be about on par with silver now, but were more expensive in the past.

	Pyrophorus:	Nov 1st, 2009 at 00:23 GMT	4 points
	Then there's also metals that cost a lot, even if their compounds are cheaper - these are metals that are difficult to refine into metallic form (cesium, rubidium, strontium, barium (sodium, potassium, lithium, and calcium are cheaper)). These are almost impossible to find prices for - industrially, they're traded as compounds; you can find prices from chemical suppliers, but it's a bit unfair to compare these prices to the industrial prices for other metals.

	Pyrophorus:	Nov 1st, 2009 at 00:27 GMT	3 points
	Finally, radioactive materials aren't typically traded openly, and are usually traded as compounds rather than in metallic form. Per http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf57.html americium dioxide costs $1500 per gram, which would make americium more expensive than any of the precious metals (it is sold for use in smoke detectors). It would be a good idea to restrict this list to naturally-occurring elements (no technetium). Other than technetium and molybdenum, your list looks pretty good though.

	awesomeguy2204:	Apr 14th, 2010 at 06:21 GMT	3 points
	I would thought Uranium and Plutonium would definitely in up in the top of the list. (As the isotopes U-235, Pu-239, Pu-241 are so fissile) They are used so widely for Nuclear Reactors and weapons that they are extremely valuable, just not to the general public (for obvious reasons). (By the way Plutonium does occur naturally but just in very small quantities.) Synthetic elements are not really sold in kilogram quantities. in fact in a typical smoke-detector there is less than a microgram of Americium Dioxide in it.