Silver world reserves

Deposits. Selenium forms natural compounds with 16 other elements. It is a main constituent of 39 mineral species and a minor component of 37 others, chiefly sulfides. The minerals are finely disseminated and do not form a selenium ore. Because there are no deposits that can be worked for selenium recovery alone, there are no mine reserves. Nevertheless, the 1995 world reserves, chiefly in nonferrous metals sulfide deposits, are ca 70,000 metric tons and total resources are ca 130,000 t (24). The principal resources of the world are in the base metal sulfide deposits that are mined primarily for copper, zinc, nickel, and silver, and to a lesser extent, lead and mercury, where selenium recovery is secondary. 

As indicated in the Product Assessment Matrix (Table 5), an environmental assessment of mining metal must consider the energy consumption and the solid, liquid and gaseous residues that result from the various mining processes. Availability of the metals is an additional consideration. Table 6 lists the world reserves of the major metals typically utilized in electronic assemblies. Sn-Ag-Cu alloy is one of the major compositions proposed as a replacement for Sn-Pb solder. Silver is 300 times less available than lead. Half of the silver available comes as a by-product from mining lead, copper and zinc. Antimony and bismuth are also obtained as by-products of lead, copper and silver mining. 

Resources. World resources of silver are estimated to be about half a million tons. However, only about 250,000 metric tons are considered economically recoverable reserves. These are associated with ores of copper, gold, lead, and 2inc, and extraction depends on the economic recovery of those metals. Canada and the CIS vie for the greatest reserves of silver in the ground. 

New technology and development of brine reserves are increasing each year in the United States and abroad. This affects the uses and price of brine chemicals. For example, development of the Salar de Atacama in Chile in the 1980s as the largest producer of brine lithium in the world has affected lithium production and prices worldwide. Lithium production from Seades Lake brine has been discontinued, and the Silver Peak operation in Nevada is in a slow production decline caused by weaker brine grades. 

Rare-earth elements, in contrast to their historical name, are relatively abundant in the Earth s crust, and they occur in many economically viable ore deposits throughout the world with estimated worldwide reserves of 110 million tonnes. For instance, cerium (Ce), which is the most abundant rare earth, has a relative abundance of 66.5 mg/kg, similar to that of zinc, while thuhum (Tm), which is the least abundant, has a relative abundance of 0.52 mg/kg, greater than that of cadmium and silver. The abundance of lanthanides in nature shows an even-odd alteration with atomic number. As a general rule, owing to their extremely similar chemical properties, especially valences and ionic radii, geochemical processes often concentrate these elements in the same minerals, where elements are intimately mixed, and therefore they always occur in the same ore deposits. Nevertheless, owing to its smaller atomic and ionic size, scandium only occurs in rare-earth ores in minor amounts. 

---