Electrical, Electronic Uses of Silver Could Add Significantly to Demand

The Silver Institute released a report called The Outlook for New Electrical and Electronic Uses of Silver. Prepared by Metals Focus, it looks at three potential areas of growth for the white metal: flexible electronics, light-emitting diodes and interposers. Together they could “add another 20 million ounces of silver to total demand by 2018.”

As quoted in the market news:

• According to Metals Focus, silver industrial demand, which accounts for over 50 percent of global demand, is expected to grow 5 percent per year from 2014-2016, outpacing forecasted global GDP growth.

• Within the flexible electronics sector, the report forecasts notable gains in silver use for flexible displays.  Flexible displays, which incorporate silver, can be found in tablets, cell phones and e-readers.

• The report indicates a healthy rise in LED demand, driven by falling costs and increasingly stringent lighting energy legislation that will accelerate LED adoption, thus leading to strong growth for silver demand.

• Interposers that include silver could hold considerable promise for future silver demand.  Interposers enable far greater functionality in the next generation of semiconductor chips. Given the greater technical demands made of interposers, glass, with the addition of silver, is being considered as an alternative material.  Metals Focus maintains that should glass (and therefore silver) prevail as the interposer technology of choice, silver demand is on course to benefit.

• The report also examines the outlook for established end-uses, such as silver’s use in ethylene oxide (EO) production, which is a key building block chemical in the production of detergents, solvents and plastics.  Silver demand in the EO sector has enjoyed near uninterrupted growth over the past 30-40 years, primarily due to the growing demand for a range of consumer and industrial products.  The EO category could witness even greater silver demand, especially in the United States, with the advent of shale gas, potentially yielding new EO plants.

• Metals Focus also reports that silver’s use in photovoltaics for solar power installations may well surpass its previous demand peak, registered in 2011, as early as 2016-17.

Click here to read the full press release from The Silver Institute.

Click here to view the report.