Platinum Availability for Future Automotive Technologies

Abstract

Platinum is an excellent catalyst, can be used at high temperatures, and is stable in many aggressive chemical environments. Consequently, platinum is used in many current industrial applications, notably automotive catalytic converters, and prospective vehicle fuel cells are expected to rely upon it. Between 2005 and 2010, the automotive industry used approximately 40% of mined platinum. Future automotive industry growth and automotive sales shifts toward new technologies could significantly alter platinum demand. The potential risks for decreased platinum availability are evaluated, using an analysis of platinum market characteristics that describes platinum's geophysical constraints, institutional efficiency, and dynamic responsiveness. Results show that platinum demand for an automotive fleet that meets 450 ppm greenhouse gas stabilization goals would require within 10% of historical growth rates of platinum supply before 2025. However, such a fleet, due largely to sales growth in fuel cell vehicles, will more strongly constrain platinum supply in the 2050 time period. While current platinum reserves are sufficient to satisfy this increased demand, decreasing platinum ore grade and continued concentration of platinum supply in a single geographic area are availability risk factors to platinum end-users.

PGE Production in Southern Africa, Part I: Production and Market Trends

“…The demand of the petroleum industry depends on the build-up of production capacities, whereas the demand of the electronic industry is linked to the demand for consumer goods. In the years following the August 2007 financial crisis, the increase in total demand was largely met by an increase in recycling [21,22].…”

“…Pd superseded Pt in three-way catalysts in recent years and is gradually taking over the market share of Pt in the catalytic converter market. Pd is superseded by other materials in the case of electric consumer goods [21].…”

Critical Minerals and Energy–Impacts and Limitations of Moving to Unconventional Resources

“…Important examples have been: neodymium and dysprosium for permanent magnets used in wind turbines and electric vehicles [22][23][24][25]; platinum group metals (PGMs) with particular reference to fuel cell technology [23,[26][27][28][29][30][31]; photo-active materials for thin-film solar cells (cadmium, tellurium, selenium, gallium, indium) [32][33][34][35][36][37][38]; lithium for batteries in electric vehicles [39][40][41][42][43]; rare earth elements (REE) (rare earth elements typically include 17 elements, scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanide series. In the case of this study, the REE of interest are neodymium, dysprosium and yttrium.…”

“…These studies have in general identified that there could be high increases in demand, but that the limitations on supply are likely to be short-term constraints. With regard to the specific metals, PGM studies have had mixed conclusions with some arguing that supply issues are unlikely to be problematic [27,30], while others have indicated that demand will outstrip supply [28,31], and that in the short term, some challenges with electricity shortages in South Africa have the potential for disruption to supply [31]. In the case of lithium, most studies have indicated that the resources are sufficient for potential future scenarios [39,43]; however, there were some concerns about the physical potential for industry to expand at the required rate [41].…”

“…Likewise, the studies examined [26][27][28]30] concluded that (except in exceptionally aggressive roll-out scenarios) there would be no shortfall, and that overall the reserves should be sufficient (for the targets used).…”