Yevgeny Vishnevsky, an expert at the Russian National Technological Initiative Platform, revealed the most expensive and rarest metals in the world, explaining the difference between artificial and natural metals in terms of rarity and cost.
"If we look at all metals in general, including those made by humans, the absolute record in terms of rarity is californium," Vishnevsky told RIA Novosti.
The expert explained that californium does not occur naturally at all; it is manufactured artificially in nuclear reactors in only two countries in the world: Russia and the United States. The annual production of this metal is so small that it is not measured in tons or kilograms, but rather in grains, due to the extremely complex and highly technical process involved in its extraction.
Vishnevsky pointed out that the scarcity of californium directly affects its value, as the price of this metal can reach several tens of millions of dollars per gram.
Californium is used in sensitive fields such as nuclear medicine (radiation therapy) and in advanced materials research.
As for natural minerals, Vishnevsky said: "If we are talking about stable natural minerals that can be extracted from the earth's interior, then osmium holds the lead."
Osmium is extracted from deposits in South Africa, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Kazakhstan, as an impurity in platinum, nickel, and copper ores. It is extracted in very small quantities, as its concentration on the Earth's surface is only 0.001 parts per million of the Earth's crust. A ton of rock would contain a microscopic amount of the metal—less than the weight of a grain of sand.
The price of osmium can range from $1,500 to $10,000 per gram, depending on the purity of the metal and its isotopes.
This rare metal and its alloys are used in vital and precision industries, including: "components for jet engines and spacecraft, production of ballpoint pen tips (jet pens), record player needles (old records and analog recordings), precision surgical instruments."
Californium represents the pinnacle of rarity in the world of manufactured metals, where its quantities are measured in grains and its price is in the tens of millions, while osmium tops the list of the rarest natural metals thanks to the difficulty of extracting it and its extreme scarcity in the Earth's crust.
