World’s Top 10 Most Precious Metals

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You may have an idea why your aunt keeps her gold locked in a safe and why your grandparents like to lock up the silverware. Gold and silver are, at the end of the day, precious metals, meaning they’re rare and highly valuable.

But what about other metals? What other rare elements can be mined from the earth? Here are the top ten most precious metals on the planet.

1. Rhodium

Mostly mined from Russia, South Africa and Canada, Rhodium is highly prized for its high resistance to corrosion and heat. With its silvery coat, it is used for its reflective surfaces in search lights, mirrors and jewellery finish, giving everything it touches a lovely shine.

2. Platinum

This highly malleable metal is incredibly resistant to corrosion and sought after for its metallic shine and lustrous look. Mostly used for jewellery, platinum is also used for a lot of weapons, aeronautics and dentist equipment due to its high level of resistance. 

3. Gold

Thanks to its durability, flexibility and desirability, gold remains the most sought-after metal on earth despite not being the rarest. Its yellow shine and chemical properties make it a very useful element to use in a lot of machinery.

4. Ruthenium

One of platinum’s cousins, Ruthenium retains many of the metal group’s greatest properties and thanks to its ability to withstand outside elements, it is often used as a platinum alloy. It is most commonly used in electronics. 

5. Iridium

Another one of platinum’s cousins, Iridium has a white sheen and an absurdly high melting point. Found only in South Africa, it is one of the densest elements on earth and contributes to a lot of advancements in medicine, automobiles and electronics.

6. Osmium

Sharing many of the same qualities as Iridium, Osmium is a hard and brittle metal that also shares a high melting point and used mainly in platinum alloys. It is also very dense.

7. Palladium

Palladium is unique in its ability to absorb hydrogen, but it is also heat-resistant and very malleable. It’s also very stable and helps protect the environment when the automobile industry uses it to reduce emissions. It is also used among jewellers to craft so lovely-looking pieces of finery.

8. Rhenium

With the third highest melting point of any element, rhenium is another dense metal used for making turbine engines and added to nickel-based superalloys to increase heat resistance. It is used on filaments, electronic casings and often comes as by-product of copper mining. 

9. Silver

Surprisingly low on this list is silver, the metal with strong heat and electrical resistance as well as contact resistance. Silver is used in a lot of things. From coins, to cutlery, to circuitry, to batteries. It also can be used to stop the spread of bacteria on phones, prevent wood mould and even control odour in one’s shoes.

10. Indium

Finally, we reach Indium, the metal processed from zinc, copper and iron-ore mining. As well as turning white in colour, it is extremely shiny and malleable, making it very useful during the second world war when put to aircraft engines.

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