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General Forums => Generic Discussion => Topic started by: tom.hall838 on October 14, 2015, 09:59:10 AM

Title: Can someone tell me the relative worths of these elements?
Post by: tom.hall838 on October 14, 2015, 09:59:10 AM

I need to find out which metal is most valuable to which is least valuable out of Tungsten, Carbon, Nickel and Mercury

Please give your answer as 1. . 2.... 3.    4..  ...   with 1 being most valuable and 4 being least.

Thanks, Tom

Title: Re: Can someone tell me the relative worths of these elements?
Post by: Corribus on October 14, 2015, 10:52:52 AM

What do you think?

(Actually, it's a completely ambiguous question, because value is (a) dependent on fluctuating market forces and (b) dependent on the form of the material. E.g., carbon can either be extremely valuable (diamond) or inexpensive (graphite). Even within these categories, price can vary substantially. The value of diamond depends on its color, purity, crystallographic quality, and quality of its cut (for jewelry). Highly exfoliated forms of graphite are much more expensive per mass than the most unrefined coals. And so on....)

Title: Re: Can someone tell me the relative worths of these elements?
Post by: tom.hall838 on October 14, 2015, 11:00:09 AM

i googled carbon and it said it was worth around $24 per kg but i'm not sure what form that is (obviously not diamond)

according to the research i did on the internet i found:
1.Mercury  2. Tungsten  3.Carbon  4. Nickel

Title: Re: Can someone tell me the relative worths of these elements?
Post by: Enthalpy on October 18, 2015, 08:45:25 PM

You first asked for metals, and carbon isn't one.

Defining a price for carbon is very difficult even for graphite because pure graphite is very uncommon, and only parts are made of it, not raw material, so the price corresponds to the part. But if you accept coke as graphite then it's cheap - cheap enough to burn in a blast furnace to produce pig iron.

For mass-produced metals of metallurgic purity, you can check the London Metal Exchange
https://www.lme.com/
http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-londMetal.html
for instance, google Nickel "London Metal Exchange"
http://www.lme.com/metals/non-ferrous/nickel/
http://www.metalprices.com/metal/tungsten/tungsten-99-chinese-bar

The USGS publishes monographies about metals.