Are metals vital for modern life?

Do you ever think about how technology like your smartphone has improved with time and wonder how science made it happen? In this episode with an audience from the Engineering Development Trust, Antonia, Laura and Jasmin talk about metals needed in clean energy technology as well other technologies such as hard disk drives and display screens. They debate whether we're replacing fossil fuels with other finite resources and consider efforts to start mining on the moon.

Antonia refers to a report from the International Energy Agency. Laura mentions critical elements identified by the American Chemical Society and by Birmingham University.

Read more about ruthenium used to increase data storage density at Science Daily, Tanaka Precious Metals and a metals trading company. For other uses, see Johnson Matthey's excellent overview,

For uses of indium, see the Royal Society of Chemistry, an overview from a coatings company, and research published in the journals ACS Nano and Nature Electronics.

To find out more about yttrium, read research published in the journal Nanoscale Advances.