The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Critical Minerals Alliances 2024 - September 16, 2024
Larger data transfers due to AI and other digital technologies are pushing up the demand for germanium used in fiber optic cables.
A 1954 advertisement for General Electric's high-performance germanium-infused transistors.
Germanium is used in a thermoelectric generator that converts heat for radioactive decay into electricity to help power the Perseverance rover.
Germanium-based multi-junction solar panels power the International Space Station.
Germanium is a versatile and powerful semiconductor that traces its technology roots back to the dawn of the Digital Age and continues to lend its superlative semiconducting and optical properties to enhancing computers, smartphones, solar panels, fiber optics, and other devices 80 years later.
A 1954 advertisement for General Electric's high-performance germanium-infused transistors.
In 1945, Sylvania introduced the first germanium diode to enhance the vacuum tube computers that launched the Digital Age, and by the 1950s, both Sylvania and General Electric had developed germanium transistors to replace the vacuum tubes in the enormous mainframes of the day.
These first steps into packing more computing power into a smaller space have evolved into the smartphones we now carry in our pockets that are hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than the Apollo-era computers that guided Man's first flight to the Moon.
Despite being the original and more powerful semiconductor for the transistors that kickstarted the age of modern computing, germanium was supplanted by silicon, a more abundant and less expensive material that is now the namesake for the global capital of computer technology and the Digital Age.
While today's global headquarters for technology and innovation may not be known as Germanium Valley, the Digital Age's original semiconductor still boasts superior semiconductive and optical qualities that make it a critical ingredient in some of the most advanced technologies of the 21st century – from quantum computers here on Earth to solar panels powering space exploration.
"The extensive use of germanium for military and commercial applications has made it a critical material in the United States and the rest of the world," the U.S. Geological Survey penned in a 2018 report on critical minerals.
This criticality rose sharply upon China's 2023 emplacement of state-controlled restrictions on the exports of this historic and future-leaning element of innovation.
Germanium is one of six elements classified as metalloids, which have characteristics of both metals and non-metals. – the other five are boron, silicon, arsenic, antimony, and tellurium. These six metalloids are used as semiconductors for high-tech and green energy applications.
Germanium's particularly powerful semiconductive properties are now being used to energize human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The metalloid's ability to power space exploration begins aboard the International Space Station, which recently received a power upgrade that involved the installation of germanium-based multi-junction solar panels to generate the electricity to meet increased energy demands of the space lab that is serving as a springboard for NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon.
Germanium is used in a thermoelectric generator that converts heat for radioactive decay into electricity to help power the Perseverance rover.
"The main difference is that the solar cells are now germanium-based instead of silicon-based," explains Bendix De Meulemeester, director of marketing and business development at Umicore. "Whereas silicon is optimized to convert one specific part of the light spectrum into electricity, germanium allows for triple-junction cells. Each junction converts a different portion of the light spectrum into electricity, so overall conversion efficiency is a lot higher."
The more durable and higher efficiency germanium-based solar panels are also expected to power the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, a lunar orbiter that is pivotal to NASA's Artemis missions to establish a base on the Moon that will serve as a scientific outpost on humanity's path to Mars and beyond.
In the meantime, germanium is already energizing the robotic pioneers that are exploring the Red Planet ahead of human arrival by helping to generate power in different ways aboard each of the rovers – converting sunlight into electricity with the solar panels aboard Curiosity and converting heat into electricity to power Perseverance.
"We're very proud to be a part of these exploration missions and look forward to contributing to a better understanding of our solar system," De Meulemeester said of the germanium-based materials Umicore is contributing to NASA missions.
While germanium's technological roots are firmly planted in its semiconductive abilities, the growth in demand for this critical material stems from unique optical properties that are enhancing infrared technologies and fiber optics.
"The major use of germanium worldwide is for fiber optic systems, whereby germanium is added to the pure silica glass core of fiber optic cables to increase their refractive index, minimizing signal loss over long distances," USGS penned in a fact sheet on germanium's criticality.
In addition to increasing the refractive index, the addition of germanium to fiber optic cables improves the quality of data traveling over long distances by reducing chromatic dispersion or the flattening of the initially sharply defined binary pulses of information.
"This degradation makes the signals (ones and zeros) more difficult to distinguish from each other at the far end of the fiber," said Kevin Miller, CEO of M2 Optics, a company that specializes in customized fiber optic communications testing and networking platforms.
The need for highly reliable fiber optics is growing rapidly as more people are sharing ever larger files over the internet, and AI applications are placing enormous new demands on bandwidth.
"Germanium's ability to minimize signal loss over long distances in fiber optics has become increasingly important given the expanding demand for high performance data networking," Matthew Blackwood and Catherine DeFilippo from the U.S. International Trade Commission penned in a March 2024 report on Chinese export controls on germanium and gallium.
Precedence Research forecasts that the fiber optics market will expand from $8.1 billion in 2023 to $13.3 billion in 2033, a more than 60% increase over the coming decade.
This is helping to drive similar growth in the global demand for germanium, which is expected to increase from 120,000 metric tons in 2023 to 190,000 metric tons in 2034, a 60% climb, according to ChemAnalyst.
Infrared imaging devices used by the military, law enforcement agencies, and increasingly in the private sector are another major driver of demand for the optical qualities offered by germanium.
"Infrared optical devices improve a soldier's ability to operate weapon systems in harsh conditions effectively, and they are increasingly used in remotely operated unmanned weapons and aircraft," the USGS inked in its germanium report.
This technology is also increasingly being used for border patrol and search-and-rescue operations.
Germanium-based multi-junction solar panels power the International Space Station.
Germanium's longstanding role as superior superconductor for the electronics sector, along with its increasingly crucial role in forward-leaning clean energy, aerospace, telecommunication, and military technologies, firmly places this metalloid on America's critical minerals list.
Germanium also happens to be high on the list of mined materials on which China is placing export controls.
In July of last year, China's Ministry of Commerce announced that government authorizations would be required for exports of various gallium and germanium products.
The export restrictions on this pair of technology metals, which went into effect last August, were emplaced to "safeguard national security interests," according to the ministry.
China produces around 60% of the world's germanium, and the communist nation's export controls are expected to result in significant changes in global supply chains, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission report penned by Blackwood and DeFillippo earlier this year.
Over the first three months of restrictions, China exported a total of 591 kilograms of germanium metal, compared to the 7,965 kilograms exported in July, the month before export restrictions began.
At the same time, the U.S. imported 38,000 kg of germanium metal and dioxide in 2023, a 20% increase over 2022. China was the largest source of the germanium imported into the U.S. last year.
While the U.S. leans on imports from China and others to supplement its germanium needs, a fair amount of the technology metalloid is produced domestically. This includes the production of germanium as a byproduct of zinc mining in Alaska and Tennessee.
"As a byproduct metal, the supply of germanium is heavily reliant on zinc production," according to the USGS.
Teck Resources Ltd.'s Red Dog Mine in Alaska, the second-largest producer of zinc on Earth, is also a globally significant source of germanium.
As operator of both Red Dog and Trail Operations – a refinery in southern British Columbia that processes the concentrates from Red Dog and other zinc mines – Teck is the largest germanium producer in North America.
The high-quality germanium products produced at Trail are used in fiber optic cables, high-speed computer chips, quantum computer transistors, solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and night vision goggles, to name a few.
Germanium was also recovered as a byproduct of zinc mining and refining in Tennessee, as well as recycled from industry-generated scrap at a refinery in Oklahoma.
The germanium from Tennessee, however, was taken offline last November due to a pause in production of Nyrstar's Middle Tennessee Mines. The company attributes the temporary shutdown to weak zinc prices coupled with rising costs due to inflation.
During the downtime, however, Nystar is investigating the potential of investing roughly $150 million to build a state-of-the-art germanium and gallium recovery and processing facility at its Clarksville zinc smelter in Tennessee.
The company says it is in talks with the government on the possibility of building this facility that would be capable of producing enough germanium and gallium to supply roughly 80% of America's current demand for the pair of technology minerals.
The U.S. Department of Defense may be interested in investing in a major germanium and gallium recovery plant on American soil.
"The (Defense) Department is proactively taking steps using Defense Production Act Title III authorities to increase domestic mining and processing of critical materials for the microelectronics and space supply chain, including gallium and germanium," a Pentagon spokesperson said in the wake of China's export restrictions.
DOD is also stockpiling germanium recycled from outdated military hardware.
Under the Strategic Materials Recovery and Reuse Program, which operates under the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act of 1939, DOD recovered 3,000 kilograms of germanium in 2022 from discarded night vision lenses and Bradley Fighting Vehicle turret windows and was placed in the National Defense Stockpile.
While 3,000 kilograms will not break America's reliance on China, the program underscores germanium's use in military hardware and the importance of the original Digital Age semiconductor to the Pentagon.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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