"Gallium is found throughout the crust in minerals like bauxite, germanite and coal. Used in semiconductor production. It us used in making LED's (light-emitting diodes) and GaAs laser diodes. The price of 99.99 % pure gallium ingot is 930.40 € for 500 g."
Even if only small amounts of gallium needed to be used it would have to be recovered. For 350 pounds of aluminum, if only 5 grams of gallium was needed as a catalyst, the cost of the gallium alone would be almost $20 USD unless it could be recovered each time. The process of extracting isolating and processing 5 grams of gallium from a mass of about 160,000 grams of aluminum compound to make more pellets would not be easy to accomplish.
Gallium
Submitted on May 23rd, 2007 by InterestedReader"Gallium is found throughout the crust in minerals like bauxite, germanite and coal. Used in semiconductor production. It us used in making LED's (light-emitting diodes) and GaAs laser diodes. The price of 99.99 % pure gallium ingot is 930.40 € for 500 g."
Even if only small amounts of gallium needed to be used it would have to be recovered. For 350 pounds of aluminum, if only 5 grams of gallium was needed as a catalyst, the cost of the gallium alone would be almost $20 USD unless it could be recovered each time. The process of extracting isolating and processing 5 grams of gallium from a mass of about 160,000 grams of aluminum compound to make more pellets would not be easy to accomplish.
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