What is it?
A toxic soft metal recovered from zinc refining, now used mainly in thin-film solar panels rather than in the batteries that made it famous.
Why does it matter?
Cadmium telluride solar shows how a regulated waste product can become an energy technology.
Deeper written sections for this material have not been published yet. Everything below is drawn straight from the source datasets and is complete.
Where it comes from in the rock
All ore minerals →These are the minerals that actually carry cadmium. A deposit is only an orebody if one of them is concentrated enough to pay for digging it up.
Who produces it
See it on a map →Refinery production
Refinery productionmetric tons 2025 (estimated) World total 23,000 metric tons
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · Refinery production; entirely a by-product of zinc. · source ↗
Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.
| Country | Production | Share of world |
|---|---|---|
| China | 9,500 | 41.3% |
| Korea, Republic of | 4,300 | 18.7% |
| Japan | 1,300 | 5.7% |
| Canada | 1,300 | 5.7% |
| Kazakhstan | 1,100 | 4.8% |
| Russia | 1,000 | 4.3% |
| Mexico | 1,000 | 4.3% |
| Netherlands | 600.0 | 2.6% |
| Peru | 600.0 | 2.6% |
| Australia | 600.0 | 2.6% |
| Norway | 430.0 | 1.9% |
| Poland | 400.0 | 1.7% |
| Bulgaria | 380.0 | 1.7% |
| Uzbekistan | 230.0 | 1.0% |
| Germany | 220.0 | 1.0% |
| United States | 200.0 | 0.9% |
| World total | 23,000 | 100% |
“Withheld” means the USGS suppressed the figure to avoid disclosing an individual company's data — it does not mean zero. Country rows do not always sum to the world total because the source rounds each figure independently and does not always break out an “other countries” line.
Price
metal, annual average, dollars per kilogram
Annual averagedollars per kilogram
Basis: metal, annual average, dollars per kilogram. Annual averages as published in USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗. These are reference annual averages, not a live market quote.
How much of it a technology needs
| Technology | Quantity | Quoted | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cadmium Telluride Thin-Film Module | 25.00–60.00 kg | per MW of capacity | Semiconductor layer |
Indicative range compiled from published technology studies and chemistry; verify against a manufacturer specification before use. Run these numbers at any scale in the material calculator →