How Can China’s Indium Resources Have a Sustainable Future? Research Based on the Industry Chain Perspective

Abstract

Global competition and storage for indium resources are increasing. This paper uses substance flow analysis to quantify the flow of indium in China from 2000 to 2019 and discusses the problems facing China’s indium industry chain. Over the past 20 years, China has mined more than 21,000 tons of indium from the lithosphere, and the accumulated indium content in imported ore is about 3600 tons. In the upper reaches of the industrial chain, the loss of indium exceeded 19,000 tons; in the middle reaches, due to technical barriers, China exported a large amount of indium at low prices and imported a large amount of ITO targets at high prices. The amount of indium in the imported targets exceeded 2100 tons; in the downstream, approximately 60% of the final products were exported abroad. China’s cumulative output of recycled indium was about 630 tons, primary indium output was 5912 tons, and the cumulative inventory of indium reached 3200 tons. Therefore, increasing the recovery rate in the primary production stage, overcoming the technical barriers in the middle of the industry chain, and establishing an efficient recovery system are necessary measures to promote the sustainable development of indium resources and its industry chain.

Securing Indium Utilization for High-Tech and Renewable Energy Industries

“…The EoL profile for a product can be modeled using several probability functions; however, the Weibull distribution is the most suitable for this estimation and is widely used. ,, The probability density function of the Weibull distribution is given as follows f false( t false) x = β α · true( t − t 0 α true) β − 1 · normale − true( t − t 0 α true) β where t 0 is the initial year, and α and β represent the shape and scale parameters, respectively, for the average life span and parameters of each product (Figure S7 and Table S4 in the SI).…”

“…12,13 Australia, South Korea, and other countries have also listed indium as a critical mineral. 14 Hence, there is no doubt of the relevance of indium for the development of society toward a more sustainable future. The question here is whether indium supply will be sufficient to meet their demands in the medium and long term, and if not, where else?…”

“…Indium has been identified as a critical material by the U.S., European Commission, Japan, and the United Nations Environment Programme due to its applications, economic importance, scarcity, lack of substitutes, and limited future availability. , Australia, South Korea, and other countries have also listed indium as a critical mineral . Hence, there is no doubt of the relevance of indium for the development of society toward a more sustainable future.…”

“…Substance flow analysis (SFA) is a useful tool to provide insights for tracking flows and stocks, material use and loss, efficiency of recycling, and other parameters in a temporal-spatial boundary . SFA has been widely employed in the assessment of indium in a country level such as China mainland, ,, Taiwan of China, Japan, , Australia, Switzerland, the United States, as well as global. , Nevertheless, most of these works are static SFAs and offer only a snapshot of the current situation at a specific time [see details in Table S1 in the Supporting Information (SI)]. Dynamic SFAs, on the other hand, can provide a better understanding from “cradle-to-grave” of indium over time, identifying flows, in-use (stocks), trends, among other over time.…”

“…Dynamic SFAs, on the other hand, can provide a better understanding from “cradle-to-grave” of indium over time, identifying flows, in-use (stocks), trends, among other over time. Dynamic indium SFA, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, have been only carried out in a country level such as Australia and China, , and to an European level, but there is no information on a global level either on indium future technological demand or on the relevance of the PV industry on its demand.…”