A little-known metal called gallium has been making headlines since China announced that it was imposing restrictions on its export in retaliation for US export bans on certain semiconductor technologies to China. The Chinese restrictions have now been in force since August 1, 2023 and are a major blow to sourcing the element, since 98% of refined gallium comes from China. A detailed study on “de-risking gallium supply chains” prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that “failing to address glaring vulnerabilities in the gallium supply chain could pose serious national security and economic challenges for the United States and its allies.”
Gallium metal has the unusual property of melting at room temperature and is often as a curiosity in chemistry exhibitions. Like aluminum, which is its neighbor on the periodic table, gallium is not found independently in the earth’s crust but rather bound with an array of other elements. Most of the ore for gallium comes from the mining of bauxite (the primary ore for aluminum) as well as some zinc ore deposits. However, unlike aluminum which is among the most abundant metals in the earth’s crust, gallium is intensely scarce. The estimate used for gallium in the earth’s crust is around 16.9 ppm (for comparison, copper is estimated to be around 50 ppm in the earth’s crust and aluminum is around 82,000 ppm).
Gallium compounds provide for a range of novel technologies from LED lighting, to solar cells, to high efficiency semi-conductors for a range of consumer and defense applications. The use of gallium nitride for wide applications was so significant that it merited three Japanese scientists being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014. Gallium nitride has remarkable electrochemical properties and is now gaining traction for another important green-tech revolution — rapid charging devices. We know how central the charging device has become to the fourth industrial revolution — every smart-phone, laptop computer, drone, and indeed electric vehicle requires an efficient charging system. Although its semiconductor properties were well-known, the low-heat generation of gallium nitride charging systems is now gaining popularity as well. Leading the effort is Navitas Semiconductor, a company that is developing a gallium nitride charging system which could reduce the home charging time for electric cars by a third. This could have immense impact on consumer acceptance of electric cars.
Since most gallium is mined as a “companion metal” with bauxite, we need to find ways of diversifying our aluminum supply while also developing downstream refining capacity, which is where China has dominance. The West African country of Guinea has the world’s largest bauxite reserves. I had a chance to visit Guinea last year for research on a book project related to aluminum. What astonished me during the visit was the dominance of Chinese investment across the supply chain in the country that now supplies 56% of China’s bauxite imports for refining. Guinea is currently controlled by a military junta with immense uncertainty about its political future. Other major producers of bauxite such as Australia and Brazil are more likely to provide a long-term source of bauxite for the United States.
Further good news is that currently we are only extracting around 10 % of the available gallium byproduct from bauxite aluminum mining. Yet, as the experience with other technology metals, such as rare-earth lanthanide elements has shown, demand can rise rapidly over a short period of time driven by new products such as smart phones. Thus it is essential for mineral policy analysts to start developing cogent scenarios for gallium availability that takes into account the high energy cost of bauxite extraction from reliable sources such as Australia and Canada, as well as opportunities for harnessing gallium from recycled materials. By one estimate in Japan approximately 90 tons of gallium was produced via recycling of scrap materials in 2010 and the US Department of Energy estimated gallium recycling capacity at around 42%.
In addition to bauxite the Round Top rare earths deposit in Texas also has massive associated gallium deposits which could provide enough of the metal for a staggering 2,000 years! Although these estimates are based on current consumption which will undoubtedly rise with these new demand sectors, there is still plenty of supply available for the foreseeable future. Eventually recycling of gallium through modular design of electronic devices will also ease any market pressures. The unique properties of gallium are likely to yield further valuable uses and greater research on its compounds in chemical engineering programs worldwide should be a priority. At the same time diversification of materials for any technological usage is always worth pursuing, though there may be chemical limits to what might be offered by such alternatives. Ultimately, we should aspire towards a world where critical materials like gallium are circulated through the geopolitical system with ecological efficiency in mind rather than competitive expediency or supremacy of one country or another. However, given the current trust deficit that exists between resource powers, a range of supply options for strategic metals is the most sensible option for the United States and its allies.
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