Gallium: the backbone of the electronics industry

Gallium is a silvery blue and soft metallic element that enjoys vast application in optoelectronics (e.g., LED's), telecommunication, aerospace, and many commercial and household items such as alloys, computers and DVD's. Albeit that gallium represents a small annual tonnage of material, its important impact as the backbone of the worldwide electronics sector goes unnoticed by the popularity of key base metals such as Cu/Ni/Co and attraction of the platinum group metals. Although gallite is a host mineral, gallium occurrence is associated with alummosilicates such as bauxite and clays, plus zinc-bearing ores (e.g., sphalerite). Gallium is extracted primarily from the residue obtained during the processing of aluminum and secondly via electrolytic zinc. Other sources include fly ash collected from burning coal. Whilst countries such as Australia, China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Japan and Russia are the main suppliers of primary (i.e., virgin) gallium, France is the largest single source of refined gallium in the world. GEO Chemicals in France accounted for the lion's share of the world's annual production of refined gallium in recent years. At present, 60 companies located in 18 countries are actively engaged in the supply of gallium products. The majority of gallium is employed to produce gallium arsenide (GaAS) wafers for the electronics industry. The supply and demand of gallium-bearing products has gradually declined during the past decade. This was mainly attributed to bursting of the technology bubble worldwide while also being subject to swings in market price in relation to purity. The mandate of the paper was to simply pinpoint the salient facts regarding gallium globally and identify applicable sources of information thereby creating an ideal reference document. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.