Brief Background Lead is a heavy metal that’s quite dense, but is also soft, malleable, and highly resistant to corrosion. Its use dates back as early as the ancient Egyptians, used in paints and pipes. Nowadays, lead is mostly used in lead-acid batteries, along with a number of other important industrial &…

Brief Background You might know zinc as being one of the essential minerals that the human body needs. While this is true, zinc is also used to protect other metals (namely steel and iron) from rusting and corrosion through galvanisation, a process that involves coating said metal with zinc. The basic science…

Brief Background Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of molybdenum before. This is because not only is it relatively rare since it doesn’t occur naturally as a free metal, its applications are almost exclusively used in the industrial sector. That being said, the metal is quite an important one since it’s used…

Brief Background Not to be confused with crude oil, heating oil is made by refining crude oil. As its name suggests, its main use is to heat homes and commercial buildings. You might have a natural gas system or electricity system in your home, but for those who reside in areas that…

Brief Background Again, not to be confused with gasoline used in cars! Natural gas mainly consists of methane, but there are other compounds mixed in as well. Natural gas can actually be extracted from many different sources, like coal and shale deposits, trapped between layers of rock underground, or even collected from…

Brief Background When we say cobalt, you might think of the colour cobalt blue. You’re certainly not wrong. In fact, cobalt-based blue pigments have been used in ancient jewellery, glass and paints. However, there’s much more to cobalt than meets the eye. When talking about lithium-ion batteries, it would be wrong to…

Brief Background When we say nickel, we’re referring to the base metal itself, not the coin used in the US! You might not think of nickel as an investment asset solely because of its association to the coin, but rest assured that nickel is used in many industrial and consumer products, and…

Brief Background Rubber might not be a glamorous commodity, but like many others, it’s an important one since it’s used in a variety of everyday products across multiple industries. Think condoms, tyres, boots, gloves, erasers, etc. In fact, rubber is so important that it’s on the EU’s list of critical raw materials…

Brief Background Wood itself is used in numerous industries and applications, like fuel, paper, pellets, etc. But the wood we’re talking about today is random length lumber, also known as sawn wood. As its name suggests, it’s made when logs are processed at a sawmill and cut into various sizes of lumber…