5 ms·

When will the world run out of the "III-V semiconductor materials" ? And which nation or corporation currently controls the largest deposits?

diydsp 13y ago
haha a legit question, but i guess you got downvoted because you could have researched it and shared it? dunno. anyway. not a chem dude at all, but it appears III-V semis are when you combine: "III-V compound semiconductors obtained by combining group III elements (essentially Al, Ga, In) with group V elements (essentially N, P , As, Sb). This gives us 12 possible combinations; the most important ones are probably GaAs, InP GaP and GaN." [1] In other words, the materials in general are: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Antimony, Arsenic, Bismuth, Boron, Aluminum, Gallium, Indium and Thallium. I imagine nitrogen, phosphorus and aluminum are the easiest to find generally throughout the world. China appears to control 90% of antimony [2] and its price seems to have gone up 700% over the last decade. Arsenic seems to have major supply issues, one of the most critical in terms of scarcity according to [3] and [4]. Nevertheless, the price has gone down over the last 100 years significantly and according to this source is less scarce than it was a century ago: [5] Bismuth is "relatively rare" but doesn't appear to be scarce. it is found mostly in Peru Japan Mexico, Canada, Bolivia and not in the USA. [6] remaining elements are left as an exercise to the reader. [1] http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/backbone/r2_3_1.html http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/back... [2]http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/backbone/r2_3_1.html http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/back... [3]http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2012/acs-presspac-february-8-2012/arsenic-criticality-poses-concern-for-modern-technology.html http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2012/a... [4]http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/arsenic-supply-at-risk/ http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/arsenic-supply-at-r... [5]http://theunbrokenwindow.com/2010/03/08/running-out-of-resources-arsenic-edition/ http://theunbrokenwindow.com/2010/03/08/running-out-of-resou... [6]http://www.carondelet.pvt.k12.ca.us/Family/Science/Nitrogen/bismuth.html http://www.carondelet.pvt.k12.ca.us/Family/Science/Nitrogen/...
cauthonLuck 13y ago
That is the question. All of the materials are expensive themselves (gallium, indium) or expensive to process ( silicon) - which means these cells will never scale and replace oil. Which is why dye-sensitized solar cells are such a promising alternative, despite their lower single module efficiencies of ~15% (20-30% for the expensive semiconductors discussed in OP). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell

diydsp 13y ago

haha a legit question, but i guess you got downvoted because you could have researched it and shared it? dunno. anyway. not a chem dude at all, but it appears III-V semis are when you combine: "III-V compound semiconductors obtained by combining group III elements (essentially Al, Ga, In) with group V elements (essentially N, P , As, Sb). This gives us 12 possible combinations; the most important ones are probably GaAs, InP GaP and GaN." [1] In other words, the materials in general are: Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Antimony, Arsenic, Bismuth, Boron, Aluminum, Gallium, Indium and Thallium. I imagine nitrogen, phosphorus and aluminum are the easiest to find generally throughout the world. China appears to control 90% of antimony [2] and its price seems to have gone up 700% over the last decade. Arsenic seems to have major supply issues, one of the most critical in terms of scarcity according to [3] and [4]. Nevertheless, the price has gone down over the last 100 years significantly and according to this source is less scarce than it was a century ago: [5] Bismuth is "relatively rare" but doesn't appear to be scarce. it is found mostly in Peru Japan Mexico, Canada, Bolivia and not in the USA. [6] remaining elements are left as an exercise to the reader. [1] http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/backbone/r2_3_1.html http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/back... [2]http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/backbone/r2_3_1.html http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/semitech_en/kap_2/back... [3]http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2012/acs-presspac-february-8-2012/arsenic-criticality-poses-concern-for-modern-technology.html http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2012/a... [4]http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/arsenic-supply-at-risk/ http://environment.yale.edu/news/article/arsenic-supply-at-r... [5]http://theunbrokenwindow.com/2010/03/08/running-out-of-resources-arsenic-edition/ http://theunbrokenwindow.com/2010/03/08/running-out-of-resou... [6]http://www.carondelet.pvt.k12.ca.us/Family/Science/Nitrogen/bismuth.html http://www.carondelet.pvt.k12.ca.us/Family/Science/Nitrogen/...

cauthonLuck 13y ago

That is the question. All of the materials are expensive themselves (gallium, indium) or expensive to process ( silicon) - which means these cells will never scale and replace oil. Which is why dye-sensitized solar cells are such a promising alternative, despite their lower single module efficiencies of ~15% (20-30% for the expensive semiconductors discussed in OP). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell