China controls the supply of crucial war minerals
lithium. A dozen obscure cousins are also vital for a more basic need: maintaining armies. The eclectic family of war minerals spans generations.
Antimony, known in biblical times as a medicine and cosmetic, is a flame retardant used in cable sheathing and ammunition. Vanadium, recognised for its resistance to fatigue since the 1900s, is blended with aluminium in airframes. Indium, a soft, malleable metal, has been used to coat bearings in aircraft engines since the second world war.
The family grew rapidly in the cold war. Long before cobalt emerged as a battery material, nuclear tests in the 1950s showed that it was resistant to high temperatures. The blue metal was soon added to the alloys that make armour-penetrating munitions.
Titanium—as strong as steel but 45% lighter—also emerged as an ideal weapons material. So did tungsten, which has the highest melting point of any metal and is vital for warheads. Tiny amounts of beryllium, blended with copper, produce a brilliant conductor of electricity and heat that resists deformation over time.
The superpowers of other minerals became known decades later, as military technology made further leaps. Gallium goes into the chipsets of communication systems, fibre-optic networks and avionic sensors. Germanium, which is transparent to infrared radiation, is used in night-vision goggles.
Rare earths go into high-performance magnets. Very small additions of niobium—as little as 200 grams a tonne—make steel much tougher. The metal is a frequent flyer in modern jet engines.
Beyond their varied properties, this group of mighty minerals share certain family traits. The first is that they are rarely, if ever, found in pure form naturally. Rather, they are often a by-product of the
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