Beryllium, a Critical Mineral: Resources, Production and Supply Chain

Beryllium is a lightweight metal used in a wide range of specialty and industrial products. Its combination of properties — very stiff for its weight, tolerant of extreme temperatures, and an excellent conductor of heat — means it is hard to replace where those properties matter together. Because there are few producers, and no adequate substitutes in certain defense uses vital to national security, several studies have classed beryllium as a critical and strategic material, and the U.S. Government has recommended stockpiling it for national emergencies. At the end of 2015 the National Defense Stockpile held 78 metric tons of beryllium metal powder and vacuum-cast metal.

This summary, from a 2016 fact sheet of the U.S. Geological Survey's Mineral Resources Program, covers production, consumption, the supply chain, geology and resources.

The Fluro Pit of the Spor Mountain bertrandite mine in Utah, looking west; the far wall is about 50 metres high. USGS.

Who produces it

Only the United States, Kazakhstan and China are known to turn beryllium ore and concentrate into beryllium products.

• United States. Materion Corporation is the country's only producer of beryllium ore. At its mill near Delta, Utah, it processes bertrandite from open-pit mines in the Spor Mountain area of Juab County, together with imported beryl, into beryllium hydroxide, which it either ships to Elmore, Ohio, to be made into metal, beryllium-copper master alloy and oxide, or sells to other makers. U.S. mine shipments in 2015 held an estimated 205 metric tons of beryllium, and grew about 10 percent a year from 2005 to 2014.
• Kazakhstan. The Ulba Metallurgical Plant, a subsidiary of Kazatomprom, reportedly makes beryllium hydroxide from a stockpile of concentrate mined at Russia's Ermakovskoe deposit and built up by 1992, before the Soviet Union broke up. In 2002 the stockpile was estimated to hold 20 years' supply, and reports from 2015 suggest only a few years' worth remain. Ulba produced about 90 metric tons of contained beryllium in 2015.
• China. Shuikoushan Non-Ferrous Metals Group's refinery at Songbai, Hunan, can make an estimated 150 metric tons a year of beryllium oxide and 1,500 of beryllium-copper master alloy; Fuyun Hengsheng Beryllium Industry's refinery in northwest Xinjiang was designed for 100 and 800. Together they produced about 65 metric tons of contained beryllium in 2015 — about 20 from Chinese ore and 45 from foreign sources, most likely Ulba.
• Russia, expecting demand to grow, has resumed bertrandite mining at Ermakovskoe, in Buryatiya in eastern Siberia, and is building a plant there — about 25,000 metric tons of ore and 130 of beryllium hydroxide a year — to supply Ulba, China and Japan. In 2015 it announced plans to make beryllium metal commercially by 2020.

World beryllium mine production, 1946–2015. Beryl from pegmatites (Africa, Brazil and others) dominated until Spor Mountain opened in 1969; the United States has led since. USGS.

How the United States uses it

In 2015 U.S. industry consumed bertrandite and beryl ore containing about 220 metric tons of beryllium to make beryllium hydroxide, a figure that grew about 6 percent a year from 2005 to 2014. Apparent consumption of all beryllium materials — counting mine shipments, trade and changes in stocks — was about 233 metric tons, worth about $119 million. By sales value, beryllium products went to:

Beryllium alloy strip and bulk products, the most common forms, turn up in every category; most unalloyed metal and beryllium composites go to defense and science.

From ore to product

The beryllium supply chain: 90 percent bertrandite and 10 percent beryl at the mine; all of it beryllium hydroxide after processing; 75 percent alloys, 20 percent metal and 5 percent oxide; then the end uses. USGS, with end-use shares from Materion Corporation.

About 90 percent of beryllium now comes from bertrandite, the rest from beryl, though the mix shifts with availability. Before the Spor Mountain mine opened in 1969, nearly all of it came from beryl mined from pegmatites and sorted by hand.

• Bertrandite is crushed, ground and leached with sulfuric acid.
• Beryl takes more steps: crushing, heating to its melting point of 1,650 °C, quenching in water to a glass ("frit"), reheating to about 1,000 °C, grinding, and leaching with sulfuric acid.

Solvent extraction then removes impurities such as iron and aluminum. About 87 percent of the beryllium in the ore is recovered as beryllium hydroxide; the rest goes to tailings ponds at the mill.

Most hydroxide becomes beryllium-copper master alloy (about 4 percent beryllium), which is diluted with copper to between 0.15 and 2 percent beryllium depending on the strength and conductivity needed; smaller amounts become beryllium-nickel and beryllium-aluminum alloys. Worldwide, alloys with less than 2 percent beryllium account for about 75 percent of consumption, pure metal (over 99 percent) and high-beryllium composites (over 60 percent) for 20 percent, and beryllium oxide ceramics for 5 percent.

Scrap. "New" scrap from making metals, alloys and parts is returned to the makers. "Old" scrap, in products at the end of their life, pays to recover only in large volumes with high beryllium content, such as military and aerospace parts. Low-beryllium alloys are recycled with their host metal or lost to slag, so most used beryllium is too dispersed or diluted to recover, and much is lost in space and military uses. The USGS is studying recycling rates; published estimates vary too widely to chart.

Geology

Beryllium, atomic number 4, is the lightest of the alkaline earth elements. Its tiny ions (about 0.27 angstroms) bond strongly, making hard compounds with high melting points; for the same reason it rarely swaps places with other elements in common minerals and tends to form minerals of its own. More than 100 beryllium minerals are known, most of them rare. Three matter economically: beryl, the main mineral in igneous and metamorphic rocks formed at moderate to high temperatures, and bertrandite and phenakite, which form at moderate to low temperatures.

• Pegmatites. Only rare-metal granitic pegmatites of the lithium-cesium-tantalum type, and gravels weathered from them, hold enough beryl to mine, often with cesium, lithium, tantalum, feldspar, mica and high-purity quartz. Such districts occur in Brazil, Canada, China, Mozambique, Namibia, Portugal and Zimbabwe; the United States once mined them in Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina and South Dakota. The Palermo No. 1 Mine in Grafton County, New Hampshire, supplied much of the beryllium metal for the Manhattan Project.
• Volcanic tuffs. At Spor Mountain, Utah — the only known economic deposit of its kind — bertrandite and other minerals replaced carbonate fragments caught up in beryllium-rich tuff. Estimates made before 1969 put its eight orebodies at more than 10 million metric tons grading almost 1 percent beryllium oxide, and early ore nodules of 2 to 3 percent beryllium were not unusual. More recent estimates are 9.6 million metric tons at 0.7 percent, about a 70-year supply at current production; grades may fall as deposits are mined out. The rocks also hold fluorite, lithium and uranium.
• Skarns. Where beryllium-rich igneous rock intrudes limestone, bertrandite and phenakite can form, as at Ermakovskoe in Russia, in a shattered limestone block within a gabbro intruded by a peralkaline granite.

Grade and tonnage of beryllium deposits, districts and belts with potential for mining, from Spor Mountain and Ermakovskoe to pegmatite belts in the southeastern United States, Brazil and Kazakhstan. Diagonal lines mark equal contained metal. USGS.

Future supply

The United States meets most of its needs from its own bertrandite and imported beryl, and holds about 65 percent of the world's estimated non-pegmatite beryllium resources. Besides Spor Mountain, resources in Alaska, New Mexico and Texas are being evaluated, and recovering scrap could become a significant secondary source. USGS scientists are studying how beryllium concentrates in the crust and how it moves through industry, to assess U.S. resources and future supply.

Sources

• Graham W. Lederer, Nora K. Foley, Brian W. Jaskula and Robert A. Ayuso, Beryllium — A Critical Mineral Commodity — Resources, Production, and Supply Chain, USGS Fact Sheet 2016–3081, October 2016. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20163081
• USGS National Minerals Information Center: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/