A recent study by the Royal Society has claimed that the world is facing a shortage of metals that are vital to the electronics industry, meaning that in the future we may see more difficulty in producing such products.

Rare metals such as gallium, indium and selenium are ‘hitchhiker metals’, meaning that they are not mined on their own but are generally by-products of mining for more common metals, such as copper and zinc.

Physicist and economist professor Robert Ayres claims that such metals don’t follow traditional economic patterns as a result because greater output of the materials can’t necessarily be produced when demand for them rises, due in large part to their scarcity.

Lasers, LED lighting and catalysts rely on hitchhiker metals and there are no known substitutes in a given application.

The Royal Society commented “While recycling of these rare metals would appear to present the most feasible option for stemming this potential disastrous metals shortage, there are a number of technical barriers to this process which urgently need to be addressed by researchers if the serious implications of this shortage are not to be felt in the near future.

Robert Ayres continued “There is only a finite quantity of each of these metals that will ever be available, yet – with minor exceptions – nobody is recycling today. Collection of these materials is difficult, and the chemistry is complicated, but the obstacles must be overcome and soon, or a number of important opportunities will be lost. More research is needed, and I suspect that new legislation as well as capital investment are going to be necessary.”