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The Global Anthropogenic Gallium System: Determinants of Demand, Supply and Efficiency Improvements
journal contribution
posted on 2015-05-05, 00:00 authored by Amund N. Løvik, Eliette Restrepo, Daniel B. MüllerGallium has been
labeled as a critical metal due to rapidly growing
consumption, importance for low-carbon technologies such as solid
state lighting and photovoltaics, and being produced only as a byproduct
of other metals (mainly aluminum). The global system of primary production,
manufacturing, use and recycling has not yet been described or quantified
in the literature. This prevents predictions of future demand, supply
and possibilities for efficiency improvements on a system level. We
present a description of the global anthropogenic gallium system and
quantify the system using a combination of statistical data and technical
parameters. We estimated that gallium was produced from 8 to 21% of
alumina plants in 2011. The most important applications of gallium
are NdFeB permanent magnets, integrated circuits and GaAs/GaP-based
light-emitting diodes, demanding 22–37%, 16–27%, and
11–21% of primary metal production, respectively. GaN-based
light-emitting diodes and photovoltaics are less important, both with
2–6%. We estimated that 120–170 tons, corresponding
to 40–60% of primary production, ended up in production wastes
that were either disposed of or stored. While demand for gallium is
expected to rise in the future, our results indicated that it is possible
to increase primary production substantially with conventional technology,
as well as improve the system-wide material efficiency.