Abundance, Economic Impact and Environmental Issues

Metal Abundance, Economic Impact and Environmental Issues 

The relationship between metal prices and relative abundance of the chemical elements in the Earth s upper continental crust is shown in Fig. 1. One can observe that Pt, being one of the rarest metals is the most expensive one. Its finite deposits are concentrated in just a few countries. Alone the high and volatile price of this metal could be a potential showstopper for fuel cells in any tmly mass market application such as transportation. Hence, in order to develop and commercialize fuel cells, it is necessary and challenging to partially reduce or completely replace Pt as the cathode electrocatalyst using non-precious metals such as cobalt, iron, molybdenum, tungsten, etc. 

Relative abundance in Earth s upper continental crust 

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