Argentium

Custom Toyota Supra Engine

All I need is a little paint and polish to satisfy my craving for fancy machinery, but for some people that is not enough. Apparently these engraved pieces are real gold and silver. The silver might be Argentium which is a special alloy that employs Germanium. Sterling silver is typically an alloy containing about 7% copper. The copper gives it strength, but it can also cause discoloration when the metal is heated. Argentium solves that problem.


Argentium is Firescale Free
This is all new to me. I've only heard of germanium being used in high-performance transistors and solar cells. High-performance usually means more expensive because if it was just as cheap as regular performance no one would use the lower performance product, every one would use the high-performance version and we wouldn't call it 'high-performance'. So germanium must be at least semi-rare, or difficult to mine. Just over 100 tons is produced annually, which is pretty small potatoes when you compare it to things like aluminum (59 million tons) and steel (1.7 billion tons).

Germanium is produced as a by-product of zinc mining. Zinc is mined all over the world. Ivanhoe Mines has resurrected an old mine in the Congo that promises to be a good producer.


Kipushi Project
So even though there are a number of shitheads running around making trouble, capitalization marches on, and as long as they are providing decent jobs, they are the good guys.

Update the next morning. I got to thinking that Periodic Videos probably had a video about germanium. They do, but he doesn't tell you much other than it is opaque to visible light but transparent to infrared light.