[thedoc (OP)]

What's the most expensive element on Earth?  I'm reasonably sure it's not gold, maybe platinum or palladium.

Still love your show - the best!
 
John Gamel


Asked by John Gamel


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[thedoc (OP)]

We answered this question on the show...

Graihagh Jackson put John's question to chemist Mark Lorch, from the University of Hull...
Mark - Plenty of materials are extremely expensive. There are drugs such as soloris which costs a whopping $700,000 for a year’s treatment. There are chemicals that have high social costs through drug abuse or pollution. But strictly speaking, none of these are elements. They're mixtures of elements bound together known as molecules or minerals.
Graihagh - Ahh, so they're not strictly elements. That narrows down our search just a little. So, we’re clear though. What exactly is an element, Mark?
Mark - Elements themselves are something that can’t be chemically broken down into a simpler substance. Of course, they're all nicely laid out on the periodic table or indeed in song. There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen, and nitrogen and uranium, etc. So, being a chemist, I'm going to use that definition of an element.
Graihagh - Okay, so we’re looking for an element, but what do we mean when we say expensive?
Mark - Well, we can’t live without oxygen or carbon or a host of other elements which makes them invaluable. But to make things slightly simpler, I think I’ll stick to purely monetary values.
Graihagh - Let the fight begin…Weighing in at just 12 on the atomic mass scale, it’s lightweight underdog, carbon.
Mark - It might cost pennies when it’s graphite in your pencil, but turn it into the best diamonds and it might fetch $100,000 for a gram.
Graihagh - That is a hefty price tag! What else is a contender?
Mark - Astatine – it’s radioactive. The half-life of a few hours and so, it decays as quickly as it’s produced. The result is that there's probably less than 10 grams of naturally occurring astatine on the whole of the earth. But astatine still isn't the rarest member of the periodic table, not if we take into account man-made elements. That accolade probably goes to livermorium, made by bombarding heavy atoms together causing them to briefly fuse into the new element. Only a handful of atoms have ever existed and with the half-life of 61 milliseconds, they don’t hang around for very long either. But whilst these are fabulously expensive to manufacture, there's no commercial reason to do so.
Graihagh - What does that leave us with as our champion?
Mark - It’s another man-made element but a useful one. With applications ranging from initiating nuclear reactors to radio therapy treatments for some cancers, but it doesn’t come cheap. You also need to set aside a cool $27 million for just 1 gram.
Graihagh - And the winner by knockout is californium!

[syhprum]

I cannot get a transcript of the show but I would assume it is antimatter that costs an awful lot to produce

[thedoc (OP)]

We discussed this question on our  show
Graihagh Jackson put John's question to chemist Mark Lorch, from the University of Hull...
Mark - Plenty of materials are extremely expensive. There are drugs such as soloris which costs a whopping $700,000 for a year’s treatment. There are chemicals that have high social costs through drug abuse or pollution. But strictly speaking, none of these are elements. They're mixtures of elements bound together known as molecules or minerals.
Graihagh - Ahh, so they're not strictly elements. That narrows down our search just a little. So, we’re clear though. What exactly is an element, Mark?
Mark - Elements themselves are something that can’t be chemically broken down into a simpler substance. Of course, they're all nicely laid out on the periodic table or indeed in song. There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium, and hydrogen and oxygen, and nitrogen and uranium, etc. So, being a chemist, I'm going to use that definition of an element.
Graihagh - Okay, so we’re looking for an element, but what do we mean when we say expensive?
Mark - Well, we can’t live without oxygen or carbon or a host of other elements which makes them invaluable. But to make things slightly simpler, I think I’ll stick to purely monetary values.
Graihagh - Let the fight begin…Weighing in at just 12 on the atomic mass scale, it’s lightweight underdog, carbon.
Mark - It might cost pennies when it’s graphite in your pencil, but turn it into the best diamonds and it might fetch $100,000 for a gram.
Graihagh - That is a hefty price tag! What else is a contender?
Mark - Astatine – it’s radioactive. The half-life of a few hours and so, it decays as quickly as it’s produced. The result is that there's probably less than 10 grams of naturally occurring astatine on the whole of the earth. But astatine still isn't the rarest member of the periodic table, not if we take into account man-made elements. That accolade probably goes to livermorium, made by bombarding heavy atoms together causing them to briefly fuse into the new element. Only a handful of atoms have ever existed and with the half-life of 61 milliseconds, they don’t hang around for very long either. But whilst these are fabulously expensive to manufacture, there's no commercial reason to do so.
Graihagh - What does that leave us with as our champion?
Mark - It’s another man-made element but a useful one. With applications ranging from initiating nuclear reactors to radio therapy treatments for some cancers, but it doesn’t come cheap. You also need to set aside a cool $27 million for just 1 gram.
Graihagh - And the winner by knockout is californium!
Click to visit the show page for the podcast in which this question is answered. Alternatively, [chapter podcast=1001096 track=15.07.07/Naked_Scientists_Show_15.07.07_1003866.mp3] listen to the answer now[/chapter] or [download as MP3]

[syhprum]

Top of the league must be anti Hydrogen a vast amount of money has been spent to produce a few atoms

[alancalverd]

Not an element, admittedly, but back in the 1970's I bought some specialist subminiature thin-film thermistors which cost 400 times as much as moondust per gram.

On the side of natural elements, some diamonds have the property of becoming conductive when irradiated with x-rays. These "counting diamonds" are useful in precise applications of radiotherapy but most display a background "dark current" which varies with temperature and makes the calculation of radiation dose a bit less accurate.

One physicist of my acquaintance built a machine to automatically sort through counting diamonds and extract those with minimal dark current. After 2,000,000 trials he found one called the Superstone that behaved like an ideal radiation monitor, with no detectable dark current but 3000 times more sensitive than a conventional ion chamber. He cut it into 30 pieces and distributed the chips (about 0.7 mm square and 0.1 mm thick) to various national laboratory research groups, including mine. As a gem, my chip would have been worth about £1, but as far as we knew these chips were the only ones in the universe with this exceptionally useful property, and I was preparing to spend about £1,000,000 over several years incorporating it into a primary measurement standard, where its benefit to mankind could have run into several million pounds per year. We lost it.   

[chris]

I understand that rhenium is pretty pricey - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhenium

[Bored chemist]

anti Hydrogen

It seems you are  right.
"In 1999, NASA gave a cost estimate of $62.5 trillion per gram of antihydrogen (equivalent to $90 trillion today), making it the most expensive material to produce.[2] This is due to the extremely low yield per experiment, and high opportunity cost of using a particle accelerator."

From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihydrogen
Though...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/apr/24/antihelium-antimatter-brookhaven

[cinka]

I believe it's platinum, do you agree?

[chiralSPO]

I believe it's platinum, do you agree?

No. Platinum is worth about $32 per gram today. Gold comes in at nearly $42 per gram (platinum used to be much more than gold, but it hasn't really recovered since the 2007-2008 recession). Weapon's grade uranium is more like $3400 per gram. And some of the more exotic isotopes are significantly more expensive than even that.

[mikerhaord]

It depends, if expensiveness is caused by rarity or by human factor

[petelamana]

Trinitite is currently sells for $34.50/gram.

[chris]

Trinitite

What's that?

[wolfekeeper]

Stupidity

[petelamana]

Stupidity?  I beg your pardon...

"Trinitite, also known as atomsite or Alamogordo glass, is the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is primarily composed of arkosic sand composed of quartz grains and feldspar (both microcline [aand smaller amount of plagioclase with small amount of calcite, hornblende and augite in a matrix of sandy clay) that was melted by the atomic blast. It is usually a light green, although color can vary. It is mildly radioactive but safe to handle." - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


450px-Trinitite-detail2.jpg (37.08 kB . 450x338 - viewed 4018 times)

[wolfekeeper]

No, I mean stupidity is the most expensive element on earth, it's worth trillions!

[petelamana]

I beg forgiveness.   

[Colin2B]

No, I mean stupidity is the most expensive element on earth, it's worth trillions!

It certainly costs us trillions.

[JaneMiller]

I thing the most expensive element is Francium!

[CliffordK]

I would think that synthetic anti-helium would be more "expensive" than anti-hydrogen.