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On the "Los Alamos National Laboratory" site it says:
"The present cost of indium is about $1 to $5/g, depending on quantity and purity. "
This is far more expensive than it's said here.
According to my 2003-2004 Alfa Aesar (scientific supply) catalog, In prices range anywhere from US $1.5/g for 99.99% pure shot to $60 for a .23 g piece of very thin foil. I imagine industrial purchasers who would buy in large quantities and might not need super-high purity might be able to get it for less than $1/g.
Ah, here is an authoritative source: US Geological Survey It may be the source for the 2000 $188/kg number. Cost in 2003 was $170/kg and the estimated number for 2004 was $600/kg. It's not clear why the big jump from 2003 to 2004.
The "big jump" is probably due to increased demand from LCD manufacturers, who use indium-tin oxide as a transparent electrode. This is now one of the largest markets for indium.
This is true. The price for 99.99% pure indium jumped to over $1000/kg around 2005 due to the popularity of LCD screens, but has settled back to between $500 and $600 (http://www.metal-pages.com/metals/indium/, Feb. 2011). Of course, when you buy indium by the gram from a company that doesn't actually make it (Alfa Aesar), you will certainly pay more. Indium foil is a value added product and will cost significantly more than indium ingot because of such things as added processing, thickness tolerance, and preservation considerations (e.g. specialized packaging to prevent oxidation and contamination).
I would suggest that the value in the article is correct. Eric 18:00, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Recent prices of $700 to $1000/kg are reported on the Chinese metal industry news site metalfirst.com. In addition, the element collector's website emovendo.net has .9999 Indium available for just over $1/g as of 15-Feb-2006.
Indium's "cry", as it is commonly called, sounds more like a crunching sound.
Teck Cominco is now called Teck Metals.
An interesting property of indium is that it cold welds. Clean the oxide off two strips of indium with a bit of dilute HCl and press them together. They will instantly bond together; when pulled apart the bond will hold and the indium will tear next to the bond.
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