Applications
The demand for iridium surged from 2.5 tonnes in 2009 to 10.4 tonnes in 2010, mostly because of electronics-related applications that saw a rise from 0.2 to 6 tonnes – iridium crucibles are commonly used for growing large high-quality single crystals, demand for which has increased sharply. This increase in iridium consumption is predicted to saturate due to accumulating stocks of crucibles, as happened earlier in the 2000s. Other major applications include spark plugs that consumed 0.78 tonnes of Ir in 2007, electrodes for the chloralkali process (1.1 t in 2007) and chemical catalysts (0.75 t in 2007).
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