What is it?
Zirconium's chemical shadow — always found with it, almost impossible to separate from it, and the opposite of it in a reactor because it soaks up neutrons.
Why does it matter?
Hafnium goes into reactor control rods, superalloy turbine blades, and the gate dielectric that let chip transistors keep shrinking after 2007.
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 hafnium. A deposit is only an orebody if one of them is concentrated enough to pay for digging it up.
Price
Price: Hafnium, unwrought, dollars per kilogram
Annual averagedollars per kilogram
Basis: Price: Hafnium, unwrought, dollars per kilogram. Annual averages as published in USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 · source ↗. These are reference annual averages, not a live market quote.
Where it is processed and refined
| Plant | Kind | Stage | Country | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TSMC Fab 18, Tainan | Semiconductor fab | Component | Taiwan | Input |
| Aero-Engine Turbine Plant, Derby | Manufacturing plant | Product | United Kingdom | Input |
What it is used for
All end markets →| End market | What it does there | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Nuclear Power | Control rods | Defining |
| Aerospace & Defence | Superalloy and control rods | Defining |
| Semiconductors | High-k transistor gate dielectric | Defining |
How much of it a technology needs
| Technology | Quantity | Quoted | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leading-Edge Logic Chip Milligrams per wafer, with no substitute. | trace | per 300 mm wafer | Atomic-layer gate dielectric |
| Pressurised Water Reactor | 0.5–3.00 t | per GW of capacity | Control rods |
| Single-Crystal Turbine Blade | trace | per blade set | Grain-boundary strengthening |
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 →