First of all, it is required to divide the cost of natural metals, they are mostly represented in the market, and isotopes - metals, obtained in special.laboratories. Prices here are different in thousands, and even tens of thousands of times. First, we will deal with natural precious metals.
The prices are for 2008
1. Rhodium 225.1 $ per 1 gram
Opened in 1803, its reserves in the world are estimated at only a few tons, annual production of about one hundred kilograms. Rhodium - a very expensive metal, it is usually used only in those areas where it is practically indispensable.98 percent of rhodium goes to the production of automobile catalysts. In recent years, the need for rhodium has increased 10-13 times. The cost of metal pushed to look for equivalent substitutes. They are looking for in the US, Japan and other developed countries. South Africa gives almost 2/3 of this metal, it is extracted in the Urals, in the Arctic and in Norilsk. Rhodium in color( silver with a light blue tinge) and gloss is similar to aluminum, but in comparison with it, much harder, it is resistant to oxidation and refractory.
2. Platinum $ 69.1 for 1 gram
Platinum was used even in Ancient Egypt, Greece, Ethiopia and South America. At first it was considered white gold, but could not be used, becauseplatinum is difficult to process. The first platinum was used by counterfeiters, adding it to coins to make them heavier. Only in ser. XVIII century.platinum was recognized as an independent metal. In nature, platinum is not in its pure form. Nuggets of platinum, as a rule, are a natural alloy with other metals: palladium, iridium, ruthenium, iron, nickel, lead, etc. For its production, nuggets are split in boilers with "royal vodka"( a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid) and after "bring "a whole series of chemical reactions, heating and melting. The largest producer of platinum is South Africa.
3. Gold $ 29.7 per 1 gram
Gold is the main precious metal, it is recognized as such throughout the world. Gold, as if originally created for coinage and making jewelry: it only happens in its pure form, is plastic and resistant to corrosion, uniformly, in short, is an ideal metal. Gold is the most malleable metal. A wire with a length of 2.4 kilometers can be pulled out of 1 gram of gold. Gold is used in a wide variety of spheres. The largest gold miners today: South Africa, the United States and Australia.
4. Osmium $ 19.1 per gram
The Greek word osme( smell) gave the name of an osmium, which was discovered to the platinum metal 200 years ago. It is really unpleasant and irritating, this smell is like a mixture of bleach and garlic. In nature, pure osmium is not known and is only known to be bound in the minerals by another platinum metal, iridium. Such minerals are in Siberia, the Urals, South Africa, the USA, Colombia and Canada.
5. Iridium $ 16.5 per gram
Iridium was discovered in 1803. It is a silver-white metal, similar in appearance to tin, quite solid, strong and heavy, but brittle. Most often, iridium is used as a ligature, for example: 10 percent of iridium is added to a relatively soft platinum, as a result, it becomes harder almost threefold. Iridium is used: in jewelry business;for the manufacture of standards of weight and length;in the manufacture of electrical contacts, surgical instruments, accurate chemical scales;make the tips of feathers of fountain pens;in biomedicine and aerospace engineering. For the city in the world is used a little more than a ton of iridium.2/3 goes to the chemical industry, the rest of iridium is used in catalytic processes, in jewelry alloys, as well as for the production of crucibles and lasers. This platinum metal is almost entirely from South Africa.
6. Ruthenium $ 14.7 per 1 gram
Metal is named after the Russian Federation( from the late Latin word Ruthenia - RF).It is a hard, but very fragile metal. It is used in the manufacture of electrodes, wires, contacts, jewelry, etc. All the more ruthenium is spent on the production of resistors and printed circuits in the electronics industry, and for the production of chlorine and alkalis. This metal comes from South Africa.
7. Palladium $ 14.5 per 1 gram
Palladium is almost a light color. It is comparatively light, fusible, flexible and plastic of all platinum, easily rolled, stretched into a wire, perfectly polished and does not tarnish, is resistant to corrosion. Recently palladium gradually takes a worthy place in jewelry collections. The lightness and low cost of palladium gives designers the ability to embody bold fantasies and produce products of different styles and prices, which makes palladium popular among platinum group metals. The fact that palladium from platinum metals is maximally available and also relatively cheap allows it to be widely used for anticorrosive coatings, in various cleaning devices. In particular, the demand for palladium increased when the production of automobile catalysts developed. More than a whole palladium on the world market is supplied by Russia, twice as much as going to II place of South Africa. This is very justified - deposits of copper-nickel ores Norilsk and Talnakh contain three times more palladium than platinum. In the Urals, in addition, there are ores with palladium.
8. Silver - $ 0.6 per 1 gram
Silver is known to mankind since ancient times. This is due to the fact that once silver, as well as gold, was often met in native form - it did not have to be melted from ores. It is used in jewelry, for coinage, in photo, electronics, as a coating for mirrors, etc. The areas of use of silver are always expanding and its use is not only alloys, but also chemical compounds. The largest stocks of silver are located in Poland, USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia. Now let's move on to the isotopes. The prices here are just astronomical. We only tell about 2 metals: the most expensive and most popular.
1. California-252 - $ 6 500 000 per 1 gram
The world's supply of California is several grams, perhaps no more than 5 g. On Earth, only 2 reactors can make it.1 reactor - in the Russian Federation, another - in the US.Any of the reactors produces 20-40 micrograms per year. California is incredibly expensive. What are the properties, despite this, make this isotope so necessary? California-252 has a half-life of 2.6 grams. In this case, spontaneously divides 3 percent of all atoms and with each division, 4 neutrons are released.1 g per second.allocates 2.4 billion neutron billions. This corresponds to the neutron flux of the medium-sized nuclear reactor! If such neutron radiation were to be obtained in a classical way from a radium-beryllium source, then 200 kilograms of radium would be required for this. So much radium does not exist on Earth at all. Even such an invisible number as 1 μg california-252 gives more than 2 million neutrons per second. Therefore, California-252 has recently been used in medicine as a point source of neutrons with a huge flux density for local treatment of malignant tumors. In mass situations, California can now replace the nuclear reactor. With the help of neutron radiography, details of airplanes, parts of reactors, products of the most diverse profile are shined. Injuries, which are usually unrealistic to find, now easily found. For this purpose, a transportable neutron chamber with californium-252 was developed in the USSR and the USA as a radiation source. It allows you to work independently of a stationary nuclear reactor. In the fight against crime in the US, such a neutron camera demonstrated its own remarkable "scent".Tab. LSD and marijuana, hidden in cartridge cases, were immediately discovered. Using x-rays, smuggled drugs could not be found. Did Napoleon 1 die in exile as a natural death? To this question, repeatedly discussed, an unambiguous answer was received only 140 years later. As a "material confirmation" served as a strand of hair of the French ruler, which was cut off from him on May 5, 1821 on the island of St. Elena, a / c day after his death. Forensic medical workers have revealed that the ruler became a victim of poisoning. With the help of activation analysis it was found that in Napoleon's hair arsenic contains 13 times more than normal. From the varying content of arsenic in certain areas of hair growth, it was possible to establish even a time when they began to mix it with food poison.
2. Osmium-187 - $ 10,000 per gram
Why does the chemical have such a high selling price? There are simple explanations for this: first of all, a very small number of this isotope in nature. Secondly, there is a huge amount of time consuming isotope separation. Obtained osmium-187 until recently it was possible only by mass separation on unique centrifuges, only one technology - the separation of isotopes of radioactive elements. Mass centrifuges rotate around the clock. The operation of obtaining osmium-187 lasts about 9 months. Osmium is a fine-grained powder of black color with a violet hue. Being the most dense substance on the Earth, it is very fragile at the same time, it simply crumbles into small particles in an ordinary mortar. Most often it is used in the pharmacological industry as a catalyst in the mass of chemical processes, for the manufacture of parts of measuring instruments. The first and only state that put Osmium-187 on sale was Kazakhstan. According to the reserves of the Osmium-187 isotope, Kazakhstan occupies the 1 st place in the world. Once the Chilean state claimed the place of the leader, and after failing to occupy it after geologists conducted research - it turned out that their bowels are younger than Kazakhstan's for 250 million years. Accordingly, because of this, the rocks contain a smaller number of osmium.
