What are Endangered & Critical Elements?
Of the 118 elements that make up everything鈥攆rom the compounds in a chemist鈥檚 arsenal to consumer products on the shelf鈥�44 will face supply limitations in the coming years. These critical elements include rare earth elements, precious metals, and even some that are essential to life, like phosphorus.
How Do Endangered Elements Relate to Green Chemistry?
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Endangered elements in the chemical enterprise face critical supply risks, making sustainable management of their extraction, use, reuse and dispersion essential. In addition to the environmental cost of extracting and processing endangered elements, there is, for some of these materials, an additional human cost of conflict minerals mined to finance armed disputes. Research into more abundant alternatives, more efficient uses, recycling and recovery will help mitigate risks and move industry towards sustainable supply chains.
Download a high resolution image of the Periodic Table's Endangered Elements听[PDF]
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Focus Principles
- Use of Renewable Feedstocks - Ideally, we would use only raw materials and feedstocks that are renewable rather than depending on and depleting finite resources like the 鈥渆ndangered elements.鈥�
- Maximize Resource Efficiency 鈥� Knowing that resources in the earth鈥檚 crust are limited, green chemists can design products that use abundant materials and that can be easily recycled.
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Examples of Reducing Dependence on Endangered & Critical Chemicals
While not yet commercially implemented, recent research has investigated the use of graphene and carbon nanomaterials as a substitute for听scarce materials in a variety of applications. Scientists at Chalmers University, for example, whose use could be significantly reduced if replaced with carbon nanotubes. There is a growing body of research that indicates for graphene-based catalysts to replace, or at least minimize, our dependence on platinum, palladium, rhodium and other endangered elements.
Another active area of research is biocatalysis. In some cases, such as in and , bacterial enzymes have shown potential as replacements for critical materials.
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A Closer Look at Endangered & Critical Elements
Learn more about the availability, properties and global impact of endangered and critical elements:
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Additional Resources on Critical Elements
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ACS GCI Resources on Biobased Chemicals
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- (Infographic)
- (Webinar)
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Selected Literature
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This report examines materials of high economic importance and high supply risk to the EU. Of 54 candidates, 20 materials are identified as critical.
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An annex to the above report published by the European Commission with statistics and data on the identified critical raw materials.
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5th Chemical Sciences and 中国365bet中文官网 Summit (CS3) 2013 Whitepaper: Efficient Utilization of Elements (2013)
This whitepaper provides an overview of the main elements facing supply restrictions and research areas of importance, with recommendations. This includes materials for energy production, catalysis, and reuse and recovery.
(2013)
This book addresses the economic, political, and research challenges presented by the limited global supply of rare earth elements and precious metal. Chapters focus on recovery methods and are drawn from the chemistry, engineering, and biotechnology sectors.听
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(2011)
This report published focuses on materials used in new technologies that face future supply constraints. It also outlines steps the U.S. can take to mitigate this risk.听
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