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Silver set to shine after escaping India’s budget clutches
While gold’s southward journey continued for the third straight day in Mumbai Monday, investors showed a keen interest in buying one kilo silver bars also known as `chausar’ given the excise duty exemption.
MUMBAI (MINEWEB) -
Silver, the poor man’s gold, has turned out to be the winner in India’s budgetary excise duty cuts by escaping the attention of the Finance Minister. Investors in India are keen to push silver above the recent channel high with traders insisting that it will be more than speculation that will drive demand for the white metal.
“Silver has clearly been exempted for a reason,” said Prithviraj Kothari, president of the Bombay Bullion Association. “Out of $50 billion worth of imports of precious metals into India, silver imports were just $4 billion, while that for gold was the other $46 billion,” he said.
On Friday, India’s Finance Minister exempted branded silver jewellery from excise duty. Silver coins of purity 99.9% and above were also exempted from excise duty. However, the excise duty on refined gold was doubled from 1.5% to 3%.
Kothari was of the opinion that silver coins and silver bars, called `chausar’ in the local lingo and among bullion traders across the country, would soon sell like hot cakes. “There is not much demand for silver jewellery among Indian investors. Most go for high value silver coins or for a 1 kilo silver bar. The latter is expected to fly off the shelves now and investor interest would surely be pushed higher as a consequence of the double whammy on gold in the budget,” he added.
Kothari added that the price of silver was bound northward since investor interest had shifted given its usage in solar panels. Panel makers consume about 12% of the world’s supply of silver, the material in solar cells that conducts electricity.
Silver paste is used in 90% of all crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, which are the most common solar cells. Though the solar industry is not the largest consumer of silver, it is a growing market that could give silver producers a boost, say traders.
“It is something whose time has come. Most of the markets that silver serves follow traditional supply and demand economics and therefore competition is based on price, product line, and service. In the case of a hyper growth industry such as the photovoltaic industry, silver is bound to streak ahead,” added Kothari.
The rise in solar power is arguably the most significant development for silver demand in recent years. A GFMS report noted that over the last decade, the sector’s offtake had climbed rapidly, soaring from less than 2 million ounces to an estimated 50 million ounces in 2010. In 2011, demand was expected to reach nearly 70 million ounces, an increase of 40% year on year. So analysts expect demand from this segment to keep growing.
In precious metals, silver was down 0.65% in the international markets at $32.36 an ounce, bringing the gold to silver ratio, which is the number of ounces of silver needed to buy one ounce of gold, to around 51.0, the highest for two weeks and reflecting silver’s underperformance relative to gold.
In India, a depreciating currency has also played spoilsport. The Indian rupee has tumbled by 16% against the US dollar. Some traders insist that as silver was left out of the latest budget tax increase, it may benefit from speculative plays and the spread between gold and silver should narrow.
“Silver has remained outside the double tax on other precious metals. But one should not forget that recently the silver import duty was raised to 6% of the value to discourage imports and enable better utilisation of forex reserves,” said Sunder Raghavan, bullion trader.
“In purely psychological terms, the news is likely to weigh on the price of gold and in the current market could help ensure that the gold price does not increase significantly in the near future,” Commerzbank analysts said in a note, adding that following a rollercoaster ride in 2011, rising industrial demand coupled with growing investor interest should prompt a sustainable increase in the price of silver this year.
In the case of gold though, the analysts have said, “This could lead to lower imports, which would remove an important crutch from the price of gold.”
Traders point out that silver has several industrial uses. “This year, it is estimated that global industrial demand for silver largely driven by India and China will increase by 30%, from 487 million ounces in 2010 to 624 million ounces. At a time like this, the Finance Minister excusing silver from its taxation basket is heady news,” said Udayan Murti, bullion analyst with a broking house.
Kothari was of the opinion that though India imported around 4,800 tonnes of silver last year, this year imports would hinge around 3000 to 3500 tonnes. “Last year there was a lot of consumption. With inflation on the rise this year, there is not much savings left in the hands of individuals. Though the `chausar’ bars are still a hot property amongst the regulars, the budgetary proposal to fully exempt branded silver jewellery from excise duty will result in an increase in the number of branded silver jewellery items. Currently, there are only a few brands in that segment. So, that will be one segment that is bound to grow now,” he added.
Traders and analysts added that silver has been the underestimated bullion with immense savings potential that may help in capital formation for future growth. “This (exempting it from budgetary tax) seems to be a welcome step to realise its untapped potential. Moreover, it has a broader reach across income groups compared to other precious metals, because of pricing,” said Murti.
By: Shivom Seth
Source: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page32?oid=147564&sn=Detail&pid=32
Researchers develop novel form of hafnium oxide
LONDON – Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a novel form of hafnium oxide, a compound used at the leading-edge of integrated circuit production and being investigated for use in novel non-volatile memory prototypes.
The university is now looking for partners to help it make money from licensing companies to use the material.
A research team working under Andrew Flewitt in the Department of Engineering at the university has developed a novel form of hafnium oxide (HfO2) with a dielectric constant higher than 30 compared with the conventional value of 20 to 25 for amorphous and crystalline forms of the compound. The novel form of the material is expected to find use in plastic electronics, high-volume semiconductor manufacturing, optical coatings and for the creation of more efficient solar cells.
Hafnium oxide is best known for its use in high-K metal gate (HKMG) stacks within the transistors of nanoelectronic manufacturing processes. The increased dielectric constant should enable further device miniaturization as well as opening up possibilities for next generation electronic and optoelectronic devices, the research group said.
- Andrew Flewitt with higher-k hafnium oxide film
The key to progress made by Flewitt and his team is the adoption of a refinement of conventional sputtering called as HiTUS (High Target Utilization Sputtering). The material is produced using a room-temperature, high-deposition rate process, making it suitable for plastic electronics and high-volume semiconductor manufacturing.
Metal oxides are usually produced on substrates by sputtering, a process by which some of the atoms of an electrode are ejected as a result of bombardment by heavy positive ions. However, it is difficult to control precisely the energy of the deposition process, and hence the material properties such as defect density.
The use of HiTUS has allowed the creation of alternative amorphous form of hafnium oxide, according to the research team, with a higher dielectric constant than the previously known form.
Hafnium oxide forms in a number of different crystalline and polycrystalline structures: monoclinic, cubic and orthorhombic. However, for electronics work amorphous hafnium oxide is desirable as polycrystalline grain boundaries act as conduction paths through the material and reduce the resistivity. Until now amorphous hafnium oxide has had dielectric constant of around 20.
“Most people thought that all amorphous hafnium oxide had to exist in the monoclinic-like phase,” said Flewitt, in a statement. “What we’ve shown is that it can exist and does exist in a cubic-like phase. This is similar to amorphous carbon, where you can get diamond-like properties out of amorphous carbon material.”
Amorphous dielectrics are more homogenous than other forms, allowing improved uniformity from one device to another, and the absence of grain boundaries results in higher effective resistivity, as well as less optical scatter.
Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialization group, said it is seeking partners for collaborative development and licensing of the material.
By: Peter Clarke
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4235890/Researchers-develop-novel-form-of-hafnium-oxide
Could the renewables industry suffer from a lack of scarce metals?
Solar Panels
It is not just in laptop computers, mobile telephones and LED screens that scarce metals are to be found but also in solar cells, batteries for mobile technologies and many other similar applications. And the rising demand for these metals increases the risk of a bottleneck in supplies…
“There is no future without scarce metals!” This was the very clear message with which Peter Hofer, a member of Empa’s Board of Directors, greeted guests at the recent Technology Briefing on scarce metals held at the Empa Academy.
After all, it is scarce metals in batteries and motors that keep electric vehicles rolling and which, in automobile catalytic converters, clean up the exhaust gases.
Hofer said: “Materials with special properties are essential if we are to find solutions to the problems caused by our ever-increasing mobility requirements.”
The term scarce metals includes gallium, indium, cobalt and the platinum metals, in addition to the rare earth metals which are used (together with iron and boron), for example, to make the very strong magnets needed in wind turbines.
And manufacturers like to use tantalum for the capacitors on mobile telephone printed circuit boards (PCBs) because this transition metal, when used in these tiny components, enables them to store and release large amounts of electrical energy. The demand is high, with more than 60% of the tantalum mined being used for this application.
The darker side
But, as Patrick Wäger, the initiator of the Technology Briefing and an expert on scarce metals, explained, everything has a darker side to it. Raw materials which can only be mined and refined in a few countries, for which alternatives are not easy to find and which have a low rate of recycling must are considered to be critical. China, for example, almost completely controls the supply of rare earth metals from which high-performance permanent magnets are manufactured.
Wäger, who is a staff member of Empa’s Technology and Society laboratory, added that by imposing export restrictions the Chinese Government has forced prices to rise, leading to delivery bottlenecks. Currently great efforts are being made to reduce this dependency by expanding supply capacities outside of China, such as in the USA, Australia or Greenland – with implications also for the environment.
Tantalum, required for high-performance micro-capacitors, is viewed in the microelectronics industry as a material which is difficult to substitute, and to date it has not been possible to recover it from end-of-life products. Particularly worrying are the facts that tantalum is illegally mined in certain Central African countries under degrading conditions, and the profits from its sale are used to finance civil wars.
“Swiss companies also need to think closely about how they can reduce this dependency and avoid the possibility of delivery bottlenecks,” remarked Jean-Philippe Kohl, the Head of Swissmem’s Economic Policy Group.
A recent survey of the industry association’s members in the Swiss mechanical engineering, electrical and metal sectors showed that every single company contacted used at least one of the critical raw materials. In order to protect themselves from possible shortages many of the companies had signed long-term delivery contracts with their suppliers. The others are cooperating with research institutions, either to develop alternative raw materials and technologies, or to optimise existing processes.
Alternatives from research labs
As an example of this approach, Stephan Buecheler explained how Empa’s Thin-Films and Photovoltaic laboratory was working to reduce the thickness of the critical tellurium layer in flexible solar cells which use cadmium telluride (CdTe) as the active material.
Similarly, efforts are being made in solar cells based on copper-indium-gallium-diselenide (CIGS) to replace the critical indium oxide with zinc oxide. In making these changes no loss of performance is expected. Quite the opposite, in fact – the aim is to increase the efficiency of these devices by optimal use of raw materials and fast processes. Researchers have already shown that this is possible, having set a new efficiency record last year.
Again with the aim of reducing scarce metal usage, the institution’s Internal Combustion Engine laboratory has developed an extremely efficient and economic foam catalyst. Changing the form of the ceramic substrate has enabled the use of less of the noble metals palladium and rhodium in comparison to conventional catalysts.
In collaboration with Empa’s Solid-State Chemistry and Catalysis laboratory, the motor scientists are conducting research work on regenerative exhaust gas catalysts which employed perovskites instead of scarce metals. The former are multifunctional metal oxides which, because of their special crystal structure, are capable of transforming heat directly into electrical energy.
The recycling challenge
Despite all the doom and gloom, we will not have to do without scarce metals entirely. As Heinz Boeni, head of the Technology and Society laboratory, maintained there is of course a reserve of scarce metals to be found in end-of-life electrical and electronic products.
While natural primary deposits are being used up, the ‘anthropogenic’ secondary deposits created by man are increasing continuously. In a ton of natural ore as mined there is typically about 5 g of gold. In a ton of discarded mobile telephones, on the other hand, there is about 280 g, while the same weight of scrap PCBs contains as much as 1.4 kg of the precious metal! But recovering scarce metals is anything but easy.
“You can’t just pull them out from electronic waste with a screwdriver and a hammer. The recovery process is at least as complex as the design and development of the old appliances themselves,” recycling expert Christian Hagelüken made clear.
A large percentage of scarce metals are to be found in the form of very thin layers or mixed with other substances in the form of alloys, added Hagelüken, whose employer, Umicore, is one of the largest recycling companies involved in the recovery of precious metals from complex waste material. Recycling scarce metals demands the use of complicated recovery processes.
Furthermore, suitable recovery processes alone are not enough to guarantee high recycling rates. According to the experts it is necessary to keep an eye on the whole recycling chain, from collection, disassembly and sorting of the scrap to the actual recovery process itself.
The greatest efforts are in vain if, as is the case in certain countries, end-of-life computers and other electronic appliances are exported to developing and threshold countries where the scarce metals are lost through the inappropriate treatment of the electronic waste, which also represents a danger to human health and the environment. Or, if with a mechanical disassembly – which is common today in Switzerland – the scarce metals are dissipated into fractions from which they cannot be recovered.
Source: http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/23613/could-the-renewables-industry-suffer-from-a-lack-of-scarce-metals/
The Rare Industrial Metals and the World
- Neodymium Magnets
Over the last year the markets have been up and down. One sector of metals has been rising steadily for years. This is the Rare Industrial Metals and Rare Earth sector. One way or another everyone on the planet is dependent on these metals. Imagine a world without them; no cell phones, no iPads, no LCD’s, no lasers, no jet aircraft, no electric vehicles, no alternative energies and no nuclear energy. National Geographic calls the rare earth complex of elements, ¨The Secret Ingredient of Almost Everything¨.
Something is happening under the radar that is having a huge impact on the price of many of the metals. China has a 90% control of all Rare Industrial Metals. China has decided to cut its exports of metals like tungsten, cobalt, indium, tellurium, tantalum and gallium. The Chinese believe that if they make the prices of these metals out of reach for European, Japanese and American industry the industries will have to bring their jobs to China. For example, this is already having an effect on the magnets industry. These magnets are critical for electric vehicles, wind power and many other applications. The USA, UK, EU, Japan and South Korea have all put the elements needed for the magnet industry and many others on their critical lists.
Over the last year, China has had a slash fest. In 2010 they cut a whopping 72% of their RIM export quotas for the last part of the year. In December, they again whittled 35% off the quota for the first half of this year and are talking about another 30% for the fall of 2011. Some speculate that the country will completely shut out the world by 2014 in order to secure their own demand and manufacturing dominance.
Obviously this is creating somewhat of an international crisis. Nations with technology backbones are currently taking heed and hedging themselves with alternative suppliers – and they are limited.
In the US, politicians are getting involved pointing out how critical RIMs / Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are to National security. Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) is proposing the RESTART Act of 2011 which essentially admits the US dropped the ball while depending on China to supply these vital resources. The act proposes to jumpstart a RIM/REE supply chain in the US over the course of five years.
There is no doubt other producers will pop onto the scene due to rising values. Many organizations are now making efforts to explore and exploit in light of recent economically feasible price ranges. Despite their efforts however, there are no indications the supply will outweigh demand in the short, medium or long term. With the exploding technology sectors and a push for clean energy, industry simply won’t let it happen.
What’s interesting is that RIMs are very inelastic. Their economic presence is so small in the supply chain that they barely affect end users. Take for instance indium, critical to flat panel TV’s, smart phones and solar CIGS (copper, indium, gallium selenide) solar cells. In 2003, the metals’ price was pegged at $60/Kg. Today, in a world with an average annual output over 1.2 billion smart phones and 200 million flat screens, Indium hovers around $800/kg in China before exorbitant export taxes and other duties, which in turn increases the price by 100% or more for the Western world. Despite this increase the public hasn’t felt a significant blow. In fact, many of these gadgets are getting cheaper.
As we eventually see more of an abundant supply in years to come, it will likely be allocated immediately. With emerging powerhouses like India and China growing at alarming rates, technology and clean energy advancing into the 21st century, it’s difficult to conceive how new sources will keep up. Nations will do their best to bring mines online to produce these critical rare industrial metals, the problem is that in the west these processes take years. The technology is there to produce metals much cleaner than in the past. Nations have a choice to make, either mine and have jobs in your jurisdiction or let China do the mining and have all the industrial production jobs.
By: Randy Hilarski – The Rare Metals Guy
Gallium Arsenide nanopillars make good solar cells
- Gallium Arsenide Nanopillars
A new approach to making photovoltaics based on patterned III-V nanopillars has been unveiled by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles and Sandia National Laboratories. The devices made have high surface-to-volume ratios that allow for greater absorption of sunlight and the diameter, pitch and height of the nanopillars can all be separately optimized â so maximizing the optical absorption over a broad range of wavelengths.
“The reported efficiency in our devices is the highest for bottom-up gallium arsenide nanopillar solar cells to date,” team member Giacomo Mariani of UCLA told nanotechweb.org. “The work is also a significant step towards device reproducibility and controllability compared with traditional techniques that lead to random nanowire growth.”
Nanostructured solar cells show much promise thanks to light-trapping effects that dramatically reduce the amount of photons reflected from a device. This ultimately enhances optical absorption. In recent years, researchers have studied structures such as nanodomes, nanocones, nanoparticles and nanowires as possible candidates for improving performance in solar cells. The high surface-to-volume ratio of these materials also increases the all-important photoactive junction area so that more photons are harnessed, something that leads to enhanced power-conversion efficiency.
Nanopillars for next-generation solar cells
Nanopillars densely packed nanoscale arrays of electro-optically active semiconductors could be used to make a next generation of relatively cheap and scalable solar cells, but these materials have been hampered by efficiency issues. Another problem is that growing such structures normally requires a metal catalyst but this technique produces randomly located nanopillars. The metal catalyst can also contaminate the pillars and increase leakage currents in finished devices.
The new method, developed by Diana Huffaker and colleagues, relies on a lithographically defined substrate for selective area epitaxy and the mask used is pre-defined to fix nanopillar diameter and pitch. What is more, it provides a way to make large-area nanopillar arrays.
The researchers grow their nanopillars in a metal-organic chemical vapour deposition reactor that allows both axial (core) and lateral (shell) nanopillar growth to be controlled at will. No metal catalyst is required, which means high crystal quality. Indeed, p-n junctions made from the nanopillars have a low leakage current of around just 236 nA at 1 V and the power conversion efficiency of the material is as high as 2.54%.
Silicon substrates
The team now plans to port the III-V devices to silicon substrates, because silicon is a much more cost-effective platform than the gallium arsenide used in this work. It is also looking at other materials as potential substrates. “For example, the pillars can be embedded in flexible polymers and peeled off from the growth platform to realize a flexible solar cell with the high efficiency of III-V materials,” said Mariani.
“We are just beginning to develop this new class of GaAs device,” he added. “Hetero-epitaxy on silicon will certainly lead to higher efficiency, low-cost solar cells that might even lend themselves to being mass produced.”
The work was published in Nano Letters.
07/21/2011
Belle Dum© is a contributing editor at www.nanotechweb.org
Indium market will see demand rise 16 percent until 2013
LCD screens continue to drive demand
31 Jan 2011 16:21 | by Matthew Finnegan in London | posted in Business
Indium market will see demand rise 16 percent until 2013 -
The market for indium is expected to see an annual average increase of 16 percent up until 2013, following a good 2010.
The growth will be supported by the continued demand for LCD screens, while applications for Photovoltaic solar cells are expected to contribute on a smaller scale.
Indium, a key raw material in indium tin oxide (ITO), is widely used in liquid crystal displays and touchscreen technologies.
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With the increasing proliferation of devices using the material it is expected that growth will continue, with demand particularly strong in the television and computer monitor markets.
Like many markets the indium industry is seeing demand recover from a downturn in 2009, and is now seeing focus switch to the supply side, according to Roskill Information Services. Production capacity is currently significantly above current output, so it will be possible to increase production at existing facilities.
China, where roughly half the global output is centered, may have more capacity than previously thought – with scope to increase production.
It is not thought that the use of ITO in the production of PV panels is expected to contribute hugely to the expected indium demand growth, due to supposed doubts over growth rates for the solar panels.
Of course it is noted that the PV market is a newer and faster growing market, with solar applications for indium increasing by 40 percent per year, though from a smaller base rate.
Following many fluctuations in the past years, indium prices surged upward in early 2010, buoyed by purchases from Japanese producers of LCDs who appeared to have completed a long period of de-stocking and were beginning to rebuild inventories.
With indium demand expected to increase strongly over the next two years it is thought that the main problem will be for production capacity to continue to keep up with demand.
If this is the case it is expected that indium prices could reach around $850/kg by 2013, though it is thought that in the longer term, as supply begins to meet demand, prices are likely to stabilise.
There is some controversy over the amount of indium availability in the world. According to Indium Corporation the figure stands at 26,000 megatonnes in the “western world”, while China and Russia account for 23,000 megatonnes of the world’s reserves.
To illustrate how widespread it claims indium is, Indium Corporation reckons the raw material is more prevalent in the earth than silver.
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