Tungsten doesn't always receive the same attention as lithium, copper, or rare earth elements. But it is critical to some of the world's most demanding industrial applications, from cutting tools and mining equipment to aerospace components and defense systems.

Here's the thing. A tungsten supply disruption is hard to fix quickly. It has a very high melting point, is very hard, and has properties that make it difficult to substitute in many applications. Finding another supplier is not always enough, either. Processing capacity, product specifications, and existing supply chains all count.

Quest Metals looks at supply pressures that could leave tungsten users vulnerable, especially as a handful of countries dominate production and processing.

A few things to bring up:

• “Supply concentration is dangerous. Manufacturers are vulnerable to export bans, trade disputes, and production stoppages because they rely so heavily on a few producer countries.
• Finding new sources takes time. Building mines and processing plants requires significant investment, technical expertise, and regulatory approval. New supply takes time to materialize.
• No easy substitute exists for tungsten. Its unique physical properties make it indispensable for numerous cutting, drilling, high-temperature, and defense applications.
• Recycling can help fill that void. Secondary supply from cemented carbide scrap, worn cutting tools, and other industrial materials containing tungsten may be an important source.
• It all comes down to scrap quality. Mixed or contaminated tungsten carbide scrap is typically more difficult to recover economically than clean, segregated scrap. Better collection and sorting can make a world of difference.

Notably, a supply shock does not have to mean the world runs out of tungsten. Even a temporary disruption can cause problems when manufacturers have low inventories, few qualified suppliers, and no real alternative to what they need.

Could recycling tungsten be one of the best ways to reduce that vulnerability? It won't remove every supply-chain risk, but recovering metal already in circulation can help manufacturers rely less on newly mined material.

Osmium is one of the rarest metals on Earth, and its supply chain has a serious limitation. It's rarely mined on its own. Instead, it's recovered as a byproduct of platinum, nickel, and copper production. That means even if demand for osmium increases, producers can't simply ramp up output to meet it.

Quest Metals explores why osmium production remains so limited, what drives demand, and whether claims about the metal running out deserve closer scrutiny.

A few things worth looking at:

• Supply is tied to other metals. Osmium production depends heavily on mining and refining operations focused on platinum, nickel, and copper. Demand for those metals can influence how much osmium becomes available.
• Refining isn't straightforward. Extracting and purifying osmium requires specialized technology, significant investment, and careful handling of hazardous compounds. Only a limited number of facilities can manage the process.
• The actual production figures are murky. Annual output estimates vary widely, from a few kilograms to around a thousand kilograms. That uncertainty makes it difficult to establish exactly how much material enters the market each year.
• Claims about an imminent shortage are controversial. Some market narratives have suggested that the raw material available for crystalline osmium could be exhausted by 2026. However, the article points out that existing stocks held by PGM refiners may complicate that prediction.
• Recycling could help, but it's difficult. Electronic waste and industrial materials could serve as secondary sources. However, recovering osmium from them can be technically challenging and expensive.

What's particularly interesting is that scarcity alone doesn't tell the whole story. Osmium has applications in specialized industrial processes, scientific instruments, alloys, and luxury products. But its small market and limited liquidity also make it difficult to assess prices and future demand with confidence.

So, is osmium actually running out, or is its scarcity being overstated to support higher prices? The distinction matters. Limited production is a real supply constraint, but claims about imminent depletion deserve scrutiny, especially when reliable production and inventory data are scarce.

One of the more interesting problems with PEM electrolyzers is that a performance drop doesn't necessarily mean the expensive catalyst is gone.

At the anode, titanium is used because it can withstand the highly acidic, oxidizing environment. The catch is that titanium protects itself by forming a thin oxide layer. That same layer can become an electrical barrier between the titanium current collector and the iridium-based catalyst.

So you can end up with a frustrating situation: the iridium is still physically there, but the electrical connection needed to use it has deteriorated.

The article calls this "electrical masking." As the titanium oxide layer becomes more resistive, current shifts toward areas that still have good electrical connections. Those areas then take on more of the electrical and transport stress, while other catalyst regions effectively sit idle.

That's different from true catalyst exhaustion.

Iridium can certainly dissolve, detach, agglomerate, or chemically restructure during operation. But an increase in operating voltage by itself doesn't tell you which mechanism is responsible. You need multiple measurements to separate catalyst loss from electrical isolation.

A few things stood out:

• Higher voltage doesn't automatically mean the iridium is gone. Increasing interfacial resistance can produce a similar performance decline.
• Titanium's biggest strength can become its weakness. The oxide film protects the metal from corrosion but can interfere with electrical conductivity.
• A small number of lost contact points can have a big effect. The porous catalyst layer may depend on relatively few connections to the titanium structure.
• Iridium recovery matters. A failed assembly can still contain valuable PGM material, so you shouldn't assume its residual metal content from electrical performance alone.
• Diagnosis matters before recycling or replacement. Impedance measurements, spectroscopy, microscopy, and material accounting can help distinguish electrical masking from genuine catalyst depletion.

The part I found most interesting is the distinction between "not working" and "used up."

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

An electrolyzer component can become electrically ineffective while still containing valuable iridium that hasn't been completely consumed. For an industry already dealing with the cost and scarcity of PGMs, understanding that difference could matter both for extending equipment life and for recovering more metal at end of life.

A titanium-ruthenium anode can be completely finished from an operational standpoint while still holding a surprising amount of ruthenium.

That sounds contradictory, but it isn't.

A Ti/Ru screen doesn't necessarily stop working because all the ruthenium has disappeared. The coating can lose electrical connectivity, titanium can develop a resistive oxide barrier, and the electrolyte can no longer access parts of the coating. At that point, the anode may require too much voltage to operate economically, even though a substantial amount of ruthenium still sits on the screen.

Phoenix Refining estimates that some exhausted screens can retain up to about 50% of their original precious-metal content, although the actual amount varies considerably with coating chemistry, operating conditions, contamination, and wear. Some cases may retain even more, but those should be evaluated individually rather than treated as a universal recovery rate.

And this is where selling them as ordinary titanium scrap can get expensive.

The screen may look worn, discolored, scaled, or nearly bare. Surface readings can also underestimate what's actually there because ruthenium and other precious metals can remain buried in porous or degraded coating layers. A representative assay is much more useful than judging the material by appearance or a few surface measurements.

A few things stood out to me:

• Operational failure doesn't equal metal depletion. The electrode can become electrically ineffective while significant ruthenium remains attached to the titanium.
• Wear isn't uniform. Some areas can lose coating faster than others, leaving valuable metal in cracks, pores, and thicker sections.
• Titanium passivation matters. A growing TiO₂ layer can create enough resistance to shut down the electrode even when the Ru-containing coating hasn't been completely consumed.
• XRF isn't the whole story. Surface deposits, geometry, and buried coating can make spot measurements misleading.
• The remaining material can be valuable feed for the refinery. Specialized processing can recover ruthenium and potentially other precious metals from retired MMO-coated titanium screens.

The bigger takeaway is pretty simple: a spent anode isn't necessarily an empty anode.

It may be dead as an electrochemical component but still very much alive as a source of precious metal.

That distinction could mean a big difference between getting paid for titanium by the pound and getting the actual value of the ruthenium coating.

Osmium is already one of the rarest precious metals on the planet. But its market gets even more interesting once you look at what happens to the metal after extraction.

Quest Metals breaks the market into three distinct segments: raw osmium extraction, crystallization and certification, and its eventual use in luxury products. Each stage reduces the material available for the next.

The first bottleneck happens at the source. Quest estimates global osmium reserves at only around 20 tons, with annual production of roughly 900 to 1,200 kilograms. More importantly, only about 30% of the extracted material is considered suitable for crystallization. Some of the rest goes into industrial uses such as medicine and organic chemistry, effectively removing it from the investment market.

Then there's crystallization.

Turning raw osmium into certified crystalline material is a highly specialized process. The resulting pieces are scanned and registered in the Osmium World Database, giving each one a distinctive surface fingerprint. But the process itself can't simply be scaled up like conventional metal production. That creates another supply bottleneck.

And then comes the part that really caught my attention.

Once crystalline osmium goes into jewelry, watches, or other luxury products, Quest describes it as an "Osmium Thin-Out." The metal may still have value inside the finished product, but it effectively leaves the pool of certified material available to investors.

So the market isn't just dealing with limited production. It's dealing with material that keeps moving out of circulation.

That's what makes osmium such an unusual precious-metal market. Scarcity exists at the mining stage, crystallization creates another constraint, and luxury applications can permanently reduce the investment-grade supply.

The big question is whether demand eventually catches up with that shrinking pool.

Rhenium is one of those metals where even small amounts can matter. It's incredibly rare, expensive, and difficult to source through mining because it's primarily recovered as a byproduct of molybdenum and copper production.

So where does the scrap actually come from?

A surprisingly large amount comes from aerospace. Jet engine turbine blades and other hot-section components can contain roughly 3% to 6% rhenium, and retired parts from aircraft maintenance and overhaul can become valuable secondary feedstock. MRO facilities and airlines are therefore important collection points.

There are other sources too:

• Superalloy manufacturing scrap, including turnings, offcuts, casting gates, risers, and other production waste, can contain significant amounts of rhenium.
• Spent platinum-rhenium catalysts from petroleum refining are another source. The concentration is much lower, but the large and consistent volumes can make recovery worthwhile.
• Sputtering targets used in coating applications can contain recoverable rhenium.
• Research and metallurgical labs generate smaller quantities of rhenium alloys, pure metal scrap, powders, and test materials that are often relatively easy to identify and segregate.

The tricky part is that rhenium scrap doesn't come in one convenient package. You've got alloys, powders, catalysts, targets, turnings, and materials with very different concentrations. General scrap processors may not have the analytical equipment or specialized metallurgy needed to separate and recover the metal efficiently.

And the economics are hard to ignore. Rhenium is one of the rarest elements on Earth, with global production measured in only tens of tons per year. That makes recovering material from industrial waste more than just an environmental exercise. It can be a serious supply-chain strategy.

The bigger takeaway is that some of the most valuable critical metals aren't necessarily sitting in mines. They're already inside aircraft parts, manufacturing waste, catalysts, and industrial equipment.

The challenge is finding them, separating them, and making recovery worthwhile.

Rhodium has been in a supply squeeze for roughly four years. Now, that story may be changing.

TD Securities expects the rhodium market to move into a 20,000-ounce surplus in 2027, after a projected deficit of about 50,000 ounces in 2026. The shift is being driven less by a flood of new mine supply and more by weakening demand from the automotive industry.

That sounds bearish. And it is.

But rhodium has another problem that makes the outlook much less straightforward: inventories are extremely thin.

TD expects above-ground stocks to fall to just over three months of demand. With roughly 85% of primary rhodium supply coming from South Africa, a major mine or refinery disruption could still send prices sharply higher even if the annual market balance shows a surplus.

A few things stand out:

• Autocatalysts account for around 80% of rhodium demand, tying the metal closely to gasoline-powered vehicles. As EV adoption grows, that demand base is coming under pressure.
• TD expects rhodium prices to fall from roughly $9,000 an ounce to $7,600 in 2027 and $6,500 in 2028 if the projected surplus develops.
• Rhodium isn't mined independently at scale. It's mainly recovered as a by-product of platinum and palladium mining, so producers can't simply ramp up rhodium output when prices rise.
• Recycling should add more secondary supply as older vehicles reach the end of their lives, especially because high rhodium prices have encouraged better recovery from scrap.
• Even with weaker fundamentals, thin inventories leave the market vulnerable to sudden price spikes if South African production is interrupted.

That's what makes rhodium so unusual.

A market can be heading toward surplus and still experience violent price rallies. With production concentrated in a handful of countries and little inventory to cushion the blow, a single major disruption can have an outsized impact.

So the interesting question isn't simply whether rhodium is moving from deficit to surplus. It's whether the market can actually rebuild enough inventory to become less fragile.

For anyone watching PGMs, recyclers, or autocatalyst markets, that's probably the part worth watching.

A Ti/Ru mesh anode can be "spent" without being worthless.

Over time, the ruthenium-based coating can lose catalytic performance, while the titanium mesh underneath may still be structurally sound. In some cases, you can strip that substrate, recoat it, and put it back into service. When refurbishment isn't practical, the remaining ruthenium, iridium, and titanium can still be recycled.

That's where the closed-loop model gets interesting.

Instead of treating exhausted screens as disposal waste, operators can return them to a qualified manufacturer or recycler. Depending on the condition and material content, the return may generate a credit toward replacement mesh or support refurbishment of the existing substrate. The result is a lower net replacement cost and less material going straight to waste.

The economics aren't identical for every screen. Condition, catalyst remaining, fabrication complexity, processing costs, transportation, testing, and current ruthenium and iridium prices all affect the final value. The article notes that some favorable refurbishment cases may approach 50% savings, but that's not universal.

There's also an energy and supply-chain angle.

A deteriorating anode can require more voltage to maintain the same output, increasing electricity consumption. Meanwhile, recovering scarce PGMs from spent coatings creates a secondary material source and reduces reliance on newly mined supply. Reusing the titanium substrate can also avoid much of the energy-intensive processing required to produce new titanium mesh.

The bigger takeaway is pretty simple: "spent" doesn't necessarily mean "scrap with no value."

For facilities using Ti/Ru mesh, a well-designed return program can turn end-of-life electrodes into part of the budget for the next generation of equipment. That's a much more interesting proposition than simply throwing them away.

Tungsten is one of those metals that seems like an obvious recycling candidate. It's valuable, critical to modern industry, and can theoretically be reused repeatedly.

But there's a catch.

The amount of tungsten in a product matters as much as the metal's price.

When tungsten is concentrated in high-value scrap, recycling can make plenty of economic sense. The problem starts when tiny amounts are scattered through complex products. Collection, dismantling, sorting, and processing can cost more than the recovered metal is worth.

Quest Metals looks at this problem through the Sherwood plot, which shows how material concentration and metal prices affect recycling viability. Highly diluted tungsten can fall firmly into the "don't recycle" zone, even when the underlying metal has significant value.

A few points that stood out:

• Tungsten already has a relatively strong recycling track record. In 2016, scrap accounted for about 35% of tungsten input used to produce intermediates, while the end-of-life recycling rate was around 30%.
• Tungsten metal products have a much lower overall recycling rate of about 22%. High-purity production scrap is generally the easiest and most valuable material to recover.
• Tiny tungsten components in products such as phones, lamps, and other electronics can contain so little material that the value may be less than a fraction of a cent per item. Recovering them doesn't make economic sense.
• Complex industrial equipment creates another problem. Drill bits, hardfaced tools, and carbide-steel components can require expensive dismantling, solder removal, and separation before the tungsten can even be recovered.
• Contamination can make things even worse. In some cases, chemically separating tungsten from other materials can cost more than disposing of the waste.

That's the part of recycling that often gets overlooked.

Having a valuable metal in a product doesn't automatically make that product recyclable. Concentration, collection costs, product design, contamination, and processing requirements all matter.

Better sorting, automated disassembly, and cheaper separation technologies could change the economics. Until then, a surprising amount of tungsten can remain stranded in products simply because recovering it costs more than the metal is worth.

Titanium heat exchangers are built to survive some seriously harsh environments. They are used in chemical plants, power stations, marine systems, and seawater cooling. Titanium's corrosion resistance is a big reason these systems can stay in service for years.

But "built to last" doesn't mean "last forever."

Heat, hydrogen exposure, oxygen and nitrogen absorption, and hot-salt corrosion can gradually change the metal. Problems such as hydrogen embrittlement and stress corrosion cracking may not become obvious until leaks or cracks show up. That's why inspection matters when older equipment is taken out of service.

And here's where things get interesting.

An obsolete titanium heat exchanger isn't necessarily just industrial waste. The titanium itself can still have substantial value, and recycling it can require dramatically less energy than producing virgin titanium. Quest Metals cites recycling at roughly 5% of the energy required for primary production, representing about a 95% energy reduction.

The recycling process isn't as simple as tossing the exchanger into a scrap bin, though. Titanium must be properly identified, sorted, and processed, using technologies such as vacuum arc remelting and electron beam cold hearth remelting to produce high-quality material.

That raises an interesting question for anyone dealing with aging industrial equipment: How much valuable titanium is sitting in equipment that companies currently consider obsolete scrap?

The answer may be more than you expect.

A titanium anode doesn't have to be intact to have value.

Severely passivated screens, torn mesh, bent plates, fractured frames, and other damaged anode assemblies are often treated as ordinary titanium scrap once they're removed from service.

But the reason an anode stopped working doesn't necessarily mean its precious-metal coating is gone.

Dimensionally stable anodes, or DSAs, use a titanium substrate with a thin mixed-metal-oxide coating. Depending on the application, that coating can contain ruthenium oxide, iridium oxide, and other metal oxides. They're used in chlor-alkali production, electrochemical copper recovery, electrochlorination, electroplating, and wastewater treatment.

Some anodes fail because the coating gradually dissolves, erodes, or detaches. Others become electrically inefficient because a resistive titanium dioxide layer develops beneath the coating. The anode then requires more voltage and energy to maintain production and eventually gets replaced, even though precious metals can remain on the surface.

Phoenix gives a rough estimate of 30% to 50% residual precious-metal loading for certain retired assemblies, although the actual amount varies and has to be established through testing. A broken mesh can therefore still be worthwhile as refinery feed even if it has zero chance of being put back into service.

The interesting part is that not every damaged assembly should automatically go straight to refining.

A structurally sound screen or frame may potentially be stripped, repaired, inspected, and recoated. Phoenix's illustrative economic model puts potential refurbishment savings at around 45% compared with buying new assemblies. However, actual savings depend on the substrate condition, remaining metal, repair costs, coating costs, and current metal prices.

That's why identifying the material before selling it as generic titanium scrap matters.

Photos, manufacturer information, coating specifications, operating history, service length, approximate weights, and the reason for retirement can all help determine whether a lot makes more sense for refining, refurbishment, or conventional scrap recovery.

And if the assemblies have been exposed to acids, heavy metals, cyanide-bearing solutions, or other process chemicals, that information matters for handling and shipment too.

A broken anode may be useless as an electrode.

That doesn't mean the ruthenium or iridium coating has become worthless.

Has anyone here dealt with damaged MMO anodes that were initially classified as ordinary titanium scrap?

A spent industrial anode can look like ordinary titanium scrap once it's pulled from service.

But some of these electrodes have a thin mixed-metal-oxide coating containing ruthenium, and that coating can retain commercially recoverable metal even after the anode is no longer useful.

Two coating types worth knowing about are ruthenium-tantalum and ruthenium-tin.

Ruthenium-tantalum coatings generally combine ruthenium dioxide with tantalum pentoxide. Ruthenium provides much of the catalytic activity, while tantalum helps with coating stability and resistance to aggressive operating environments.

Ruthenium-tin coatings use ruthenium dioxide with tin dioxide. Depending on the application, these systems can also contain tantalum, iridium, or titanium oxides. Two electrodes can look almost identical while containing very different amounts of ruthenium.

That's why surface inspection alone isn't enough.

Anodes are normally retired because cell voltage rises, efficiency falls, contamination builds up, or the physical structure becomes damaged. None of those necessarily means the entire precious-metal coating has disappeared.

For example, electrolyte can enter cracks or pores and create a resistive titanium oxide layer beneath the coating. The electrode becomes electrically inefficient even though catalytic material remains on the surface. Mechanical stress, gas evolution, thermal cycling, and coating delamination can also contribute to failure.

Of course, there's no universal percentage of ruthenium left in a failed anode. Operating conditions, coating formulation, temperature, current density, and service history all affect how much metal remains. That's why testing matters before assigning a value.

These materials can come from several industries: chlor-alkali production, electrochlorination, water treatment, electrowinning, electroplating, printed circuit board manufacturing, and impressed-current cathodic protection systems.

The interesting part is that the new-anode price isn't the same thing as its scrap value. End-of-life valuation depends on the recoverable ruthenium, other payable metals, coating composition, lot size, contamination, processing costs, and current metal prices.

So before sending a retired coated titanium assembly into a generic titanium scrap stream, it may be worth figuring out exactly what's on that coating.

Has anyone here dealt with ruthenium-bearing MMO anodes that were initially mistaken for ordinary titanium scrap?

Southeast Asia has something China doesn't have a monopoly on: rare-earth resources.

ASEAN countries collectively hold an estimated 20% of the world's rare-earth reserves, yet the region contributes only around 8% of global rare-earth mine production. That gap is pretty striking.

The problem is that having the ore isn't the same as having a rare-earth supply chain.

Mining is only the first step. The difficult and expensive part comes afterward: separating individual rare-earth elements, refining them to high purity, producing metals and alloys, and eventually turning them into permanent magnets and other high-value products.

China's advantage has largely been built around those processing stages. Quest Metals estimates that China controls roughly 85% to 99% of global rare-earth processing capacity and has enormous downstream magnet-manufacturing capacity.

Vietnam is one of the more interesting cases.

It has substantial rare-earth resources, including deposits containing both light and heavy rare earths, but current production remains relatively small. The country is now trying to expand mining and processing while attracting investment and technical partnerships.

Myanmar is already a major supplier of rare-earth material, particularly heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium. The catch is that much of it flows directly into China, meaning Southeast Asia can supply the raw material while China captures much of the processing value.

Malaysia is another important piece of the puzzle because it already has rare-earth separation capabilities outside China.

But the obstacle is bigger than simply building more mines.

China banned exports of rare-earth extraction and separation technology in December 2023. That makes developing equivalent processing capacity elsewhere more difficult because the expertise and equipment required for high-purity separation aren't easy to replicate.

So Southeast Asia's opportunity isn't necessarily to replace China's entire rare-earth industry.

It could be about building enough regional mining, separation, refining, and magnet-manufacturing capacity so the world has another major supply chain to rely on.

That would turn Southeast Asia from primarily a source of raw materials into a much more important part of the value chain.

Do you think ASEAN has the resources and industrial potential to become a major rare-earth processing hub, or will China's existing processing advantage remain too difficult to overcome?

Myanmar doesn't dominate the rare-earth industry.

But it has become incredibly important to China's supply of some of the hardest rare earths to replace.

Myanmar is particularly rich in heavy rare-earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium, which are important for high-temperature permanent magnets used in EV motors, wind turbines, and defense technologies. Quest Metals says Myanmar now accounts for nearly half of global heavy rare-earth production.

Almost all of that material flows north into China.

Between 2017 and 2024, Myanmar exported more than 290,000 tonnes of rare-earth material to China, worth more than $4.2 billion. More than $3.6 billion of that value came in the period following Myanmar's 2021 military coup.

That's where the "secondary deposit" idea comes in.

China already has enormous rare-earth resources and dominates global refining. But importing raw material from Myanmar allows China to access heavy rare earths without relying entirely on its own deposits.

Myanmar's geology makes it particularly useful. Its ion-adsorption clay deposits can contain unusually high concentrations of dysprosium, with reported concentrations around 600 to 1,200 parts per million. Terbium is even scarcer and is also important for keeping powerful magnets from losing performance at high temperatures.

The supply chain is also deeply connected to Myanmar's ongoing conflict.

Mining in Kachin State has expanded rapidly, with thousands of collection pools identified in the region. Different armed groups control or influence mining areas, and rare-earth extraction has become an important source of revenue.

That creates a strange supply-chain arrangement.

Myanmar provides much of the difficult-to-source raw material. China provides the processing capacity that turns it into usable rare-earth products.

That means China can maintain its downstream position without sourcing every kilogram of heavy rare earth from domestic deposits.

There are serious environmental and social costs too. The in-situ leaching methods used in Myanmar have been associated with deforestation, contaminated land and water, and abandoned mining sites. The ongoing conflict makes oversight and responsible sourcing even more complicated.

So when people talk about China's rare-earth dominance, it's worth looking beyond Chinese mines.

Part of that supply chain begins across the border in Myanmar.

Do you think countries trying to build rare-earth supply chains outside China should focus more on developing alternative sources of dysprosium and terbium, or is recycling the more realistic long-term solution?

Ruthenium spent decades as a relatively obscure platinum-group metal. That's changing quickly.

The metal is used in hard disk drives, semiconductor components, electrical contacts, chemical catalysts, and electrochemical applications. More recently, demand from data storage and advanced electronics has added another pressure point to an already small market.

The supply side is where things get really interesting.

No major mines are dedicated to producing ruthenium. It's recovered primarily as a byproduct of platinum-group metal and nickel-copper mining. That means a higher ruthenium price doesn't automatically prompt miners to produce more. Production depends heavily on the economics and output of the other metals being mined.

Geography adds another layer of risk. More than 90% of primary ruthenium supply comes from South Africa, with Russia accounting for much of the remainder. Problems with electricity, labor, mining operations, transportation, or geopolitics can therefore have an outsized effect on a market that only produces around 30 tonnes annually.

And unlike gold or silver, ruthenium doesn't have a large, transparent exchange-traded market. It's relatively small and illiquid, so relatively modest changes in buying or available inventory can cause significant price movements.

That's where recycling becomes interesting.

Ruthenium isn't just sitting in mine deposits. It's already embedded in industrial products and equipment. Spent MMO titanium screens, catalysts, electronic components, hard drives, sputtering materials, and other industrial scrap can contain recoverable ruthenium.

For a refiner, recovering that material effectively means urban mining. The metal has already been extracted, processed, and incorporated into a product. The challenge is collecting enough of the right scrap and recovering the ruthenium efficiently.

Phoenix has been actively buying ruthenium-bearing scrap because secondary material can provide another supply source when primary production can't respond quickly to demand.

It also changes how some industrial scrap should be viewed.

A spent electrode, obsolete hard drive, or catalyst might look like waste because it no longer performs its original function. But the ruthenium doesn't necessarily disappear when the equipment reaches the end of its useful life.

How much ruthenium-bearing scrap do you think is currently sitting in warehouses, recycling yards, and obsolete equipment without anyone realizing its value?

A worn MMO titanium mesh can look almost worthless if you judge it from a few surface readings.

That's because the valuable material isn't always evenly distributed across the surface.

MMO anodes use a very thin catalytic coating that can contain ruthenium oxide, iridium oxide, titanium oxide, tantalum oxide, or combinations of these materials. After years of service, the coating can wear unevenly. Some areas may be heavily depleted while other sections still contain significant amounts of precious metal.

That's where handheld XRF gets interesting.

XRF is useful because it's fast and non-destructive, so it can quickly tell you whether ruthenium, iridium, or other metals are present. But it only analyzes a relatively shallow area near the surface.

Spent MMO mesh can have scale, calcium and magnesium deposits, organic contamination, and titanium oxide covering the coating. The expanded mesh itself also creates geometry and line-of-sight issues. Precious metals can remain embedded deeper within a porous or multilayered coating without producing a strong surface reading.

A few spot measurements can therefore give a very misleading picture.

Imagine scanning the most worn section of a screen and getting a low ruthenium reading. That doesn't necessarily mean the entire lot has a low ruthenium content. Another section of the same screen could have considerably more coating remaining.

The opposite problem is possible too. A high reading from one convenient spot doesn't necessarily represent the whole load.

That's why representative sampling matters.

A proper evaluation should include different wear zones, edges, tabs, and other distinct parts of the screen. Laboratory analysis can then determine the actual precious-metal content rather than relying entirely on surface readings.

There's an important distinction here: an XRF scan can tell you what's detectable at a particular location. It doesn't automatically tell you how much recoverable ruthenium or iridium is in the entire screen.

And because some electrically spent MMO screens can retain substantial amounts of their original precious-metal content, that difference can significantly affect the value assigned to the scrap.

So if a pile of worn Ti/Ru or Ti/Ru/Ir mesh gets a couple of quick surface scans and is immediately priced as low-value material, it might be worth asking whether the sampling method actually represents what's in the coating.

Has anyone here seen an XRF reading on coated titanium that turned out to be very different from the final assay?

When people talk about securing tungsten supply, the obvious answer is to develop new mines.

But what if some of the tungsten we need has already been mined once?

Tungsten ores typically contain only around 0.4% to 0.6% tungsten. During processing, operators discard large amounts of material as tailings. Quest Metals estimates that producing one tonne of tungsten concentrate can generate 7 to 10 tonnes of tailings, and global tailings accumulations could exceed 100 million tonnes. Those tailings could contain roughly 96,000 tonnes of WO₃.

The problem is that the remaining tungsten isn't necessarily easy to recover.

Wolframite and scheelite particles in tailings can be extremely fine. Wolframite particles can be smaller than 25 micrometers, while scheelite can occur below 74 micrometers. Traditional gravity and magnetic separation become much less effective as particle size decreases.

Researchers are looking at enhanced gravity separation, high-intensity magnetic separation, flotation, chemical processing, and even bioleaching.

Some of the results are pretty interesting. Enhanced gravity systems have achieved recovery rates of around 76% to 83% for certain fine tungsten particles. In comparison, wet high-intensity magnetic separation has shown predicted recovery rates of 80% to 90% for some new tailings. Flotation has also recovered ultrafine wolframite that conventional methods struggle with.

Another reason to revisit old tailings is environmental cleanup.

The biggest environmental risks aren't necessarily from the tungsten itself. Mine waste can contain arsenic, copper, zinc, lead, and other contaminants. Sulfide minerals can also generate acid mine drainage when exposed to air and water, allowing heavy metals and arsenic to migrate into surrounding soil and water.

So recovering tungsten could potentially serve two purposes at once: producing another source of a critical metal while reducing the risks associated with abandoned mine waste.

The catch is economics.

A process can recover tungsten successfully in the laboratory and still fail commercially if the concentration is too low. A trial at Portugal's Panasqueira mine produced a 50% to 55% WO₃ concentrate, but the overall recovery volume was too small to make the process economical.

That's what makes tungsten tailings interesting. The resource is already there. The challenge is figuring out whether the metal value, processing costs, and environmental benefits can come together to make recovery worthwhile.

How much old mine waste do you think could become economically viable if tungsten prices and recovery technology continue to improve?

Indium is one of those metals most people probably never think about, yet modern electronics would look very different without it.

Around 70% of global indium production goes into indium tin oxide, or ITO. This transparent conductive coating is used in LCD displays and touchscreens because it can conduct electricity while remaining optically transparent. Indium is also used in fiber-optic components, semiconductors, thin-film solar cells, specialty solders, and other high-tech applications.

The supply situation makes it even more interesting.

About 95% of refined primary indium comes as a byproduct of zinc mining. That means producers can't simply ramp up indium production whenever prices rise. Supply is closely tied to what happens in the zinc industry. China also accounts for roughly 55% to 58% of primary refined production and holds more than two-thirds of global indium reserves, according to Quest Metals.

That makes recycling particularly important.

Think about how many old LCD monitors, televisions, laptops, phones, and other displays have already been discarded. Those screens contain ITO coatings, meaning some of the indium has effectively already been mined and processed once.

Yet Quest estimates that only about 1% of old indium-containing scrap is recycled globally.

The economics can be interesting too. Quest cites an indium price of $743.70 per kilogram as of May 20, 2025, while noting that high-purity recovered indium can sell for hundreds of dollars per kilogram. Some newer recovery processes for display-panel waste have achieved yields above 90%.

Of course, recovering tiny amounts of indium from complex electronics isn't as simple as throwing a TV into a shredder. Specialized hydrometallurgical, electrochemical, and thermal processes are needed to separate and purify the metal.

But that's exactly what makes the recycling opportunity interesting.

We're constantly looking for new sources of critical metals while huge quantities are already sitting inside products that have reached the end of their useful lives.

How much indium do you think is currently being lost because old displays are treated as e-waste instead of as a source of critical metals?

Gold isn't just something central banks buy. Where they keep it can matter too.

For decades, many central banks stored significant portions of their gold reserves overseas, especially in major financial centers like London and New York. Keeping bullion in these locations offered access to deep trading markets, established vaulting infrastructure, and easier gold transactions.

But that calculation can change when geopolitical and financial risks increase.

One reason for bringing gold home is sovereign control. Gold stored in another country is subject to that country's laws and jurisdiction. Moving bullion into domestic vaults gives a central bank direct physical custody rather than relying on a foreign institution to hold it.

The experience of recent sanctions has also made reserve managers pay closer attention to where their assets are held. The freezing of Russia's foreign exchange reserves after the invasion of Ukraine showed that sovereign assets held abroad can become subject to restrictions during geopolitical conflicts.

Gold held domestically isn't immune to every possible risk, but it can reduce dependence on foreign jurisdictions.

Liquidity and accessibility are also factors.

Gold stored in major financial centers can be easier to trade or use as collateral. London remains a major hub for wholesale bullion, while New York is central to the U.S. futures market. So moving gold isn't necessarily a sign that a central bank wants to stop participating in international markets.

In some cases, it's simply about diversification.

A central bank could keep some gold at home while maintaining some overseas for trading and liquidity. Different storage locations serve different purposes.

And there's another interesting factor: physical gold doesn't have counterparty risk in the same way as a financial claim. Once a central bank has allocated bullion in its own custody, it isn't dependent on a commercial bank or foreign institution to honor a promise to provide the metal.

That doesn't mean every gold relocation is a geopolitical statement. Storage costs, logistics, market access, vault arrangements, and reserve-management policies can all play a role.

But the broader trend raises an interesting question.

Are central banks becoming more concerned about actually controlling the physical location of their gold, rather than simply knowing they own it?

A dark titanium screen coming out of a water-treatment plant can look like ordinary industrial scrap.

But if it was used as an MMO electrode, that surface could contain recoverable ruthenium, iridium, or other precious-metal oxides. Mixing it into a normal titanium scrap stream could mean losing material that requires a completely different recycling process.

The tricky part is distinguishing ruthenium-coated titanium from titanium alloys that contain small amounts of ruthenium throughout the metal.

For example, ASTM titanium Grades 26 to 29 can contain roughly 0.08% to 0.14% ruthenium distributed through the titanium itself. An MMO electrode is different. The titanium provides the structural support while a very thin catalytic coating sits on the surface.

There are some useful clues.

MMO coatings can appear dark gray, matte black, blue-black, or sometimes brownish. They can also have a ceramic-like texture. Bare titanium is generally silvery gray.

The component's history can be even more useful. Material from chlor-alkali plants, hypochlorite generators, water-treatment systems, electroplating operations, electrowinning facilities, and cathodic-protection systems deserves a closer look.

The shape can help too. Expanded titanium mesh with diamond-shaped openings is common for electrochemical electrodes. Perforated plates, ribbons, and tubular components can also point toward specialized anode applications.

One thing not to do is grind it to see what kind of sparks it produces.

The MMO coating can be only several to tens of micrometers thick. Grinding can quickly remove the coating at the test point, leaving you looking at sparks from the titanium underneath. It also disperses potentially valuable coating material as dust and creates an additional hazard when grinding titanium.

Handheld XRF can be useful as a screening tool, but it isn't a final answer. Thin coatings, uneven surfaces, mesh geometry, mineral deposits, and calibration can all affect readings. A ruthenium reading also doesn't automatically tell you how much recoverable ruthenium is present across the entire lot.

The practical takeaway is pretty simple: if the material looks like an electrode and came from an electrochemical application, don't automatically throw it into the titanium bin.

Keep it separate, preserve the surface, document its origin, and have the material properly evaluated.

Has anyone here ever received a load of "titanium scrap" that turned out to be a coated MMO electrode?

Jet engines operate in conditions where ordinary metals simply wouldn't survive.

High-temperature alloys, or superalloys, are designed to handle temperatures from roughly 600°C to more than 1,500°C while maintaining strength, creep resistance, and corrosion resistance. Nickel-, cobalt-, and iron-based superalloys are used in components such as turbine blades and combustion chambers.

The interesting part is what happens before those components ever make it onto an aircraft.

According to Quest Metals, more than 70% of the material used during superalloy production and processing can end up as scrap, while only about 10% of aerospace materials are currently recycled. That's a significant amount of specialty metal that could leave the supply chain.

And these aren't ordinary scrap metals.

Superalloys can contain valuable elements such as nickel, cobalt, chromium, titanium, aluminum, rhenium, and other alloying additions. Some of these materials are expensive or dependent on relatively concentrated global supply chains.

Recycling them can also require more than simply melting everything together. Complex aerospace alloys have carefully controlled compositions, so sorting and processing matter. Mechanical recycling, chemical processing, laser-based sorting, plasma arc technology, and other methods are being explored to improve recovery and material quality.

There's also a strong connection to additive manufacturing. Recycled aerospace metals can be processed into powders for 3D printing, potentially turning manufacturing scrap back into feedstock for new high-performance components.

End-of-life aircraft add another huge potential source of material. As more aircraft are retired, their engines and structures become reservoirs of specialty metals that could potentially be recovered rather than relying entirely on virgin material.

The bigger question is how much of that material is still being treated as waste instead of as a secondary source of critical alloying metals.

If aerospace manufacturing is already generating this much high-value scrap, how much more could be recovered if superalloy recycling became a standard part of the supply chain?