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🧭 Guided View New to this — ore grades, concentrate, refining, by-products? We explain every term as you browse, in plain English. Same data, with the help built in.

⚡ Expert View You already know the industry. Just the data — clean, fast and compact, with no extra explanations. This is the default view.

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Interface language

Depth Material pages are written at four levels. Pick one on any material page and it is remembered.

★ Saved Research & data

End market

Aerospace & Defence

Aircraft, engines, satellites, missiles and armour.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation scholars visited Goddard o… · NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Debora McCallum · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Why it matters to materials

An aero-engine turbine blade sits in gas hotter than the alloy's melting point and survives because of rhenium, hafnium and a ceramic coating. That is why a few tonnes of a by-product metal can be a national-security question.

Scale. Small tonnages, extreme specifications, and the least tolerance for supply interruption of any sector.

What it is made of

All materials →

Material	What it does here	Importance
Aluminium critical	Airframe skin and structure	Defining
Cobalt critical	Superalloy binder and magnets	Defining
Gallium critical	Radar transmit-receive modules	Defining
Hafnium critical	Superalloy and control rods	Defining
Nickel critical	Superalloy for hot sections	Defining
Rhenium critical	Single-crystal superalloy	Defining
Titanium critical	Airframe and engine structure	Defining
Antimony critical	Ammunition primers and flame retardants	Important
Beryllium critical	Optics and inertial guidance	Important
Germanium critical	Infrared optics	Important
Samarium critical	High-temperature magnets	Important
Tantalum critical	Superalloy and capacitors	Important
Tungsten critical	Penetrators and counterweights	Important
Yttrium critical	Thermal barrier coatings	Important
Scandium critical	High-strength aluminium alloy	Present