Compounds

Defined chemical compounds treated as industrial substances, including those that also occur naturally as minerals.

• Aluminium oxide

  Al2O3

  Industrial alumina — the refined intermediate between bauxite and aluminium metal, and a major ceramic in its own right.

• Cadmium telluride

  CdTe

  A semiconductor that absorbs sunlight in a layer a few microns thick — the only thin-film solar technology to have taken serious market share from silicon.

• Ethylene

  C2H4

  The highest-tonnage organic chemical made anywhere, and a plant hormone that ripens fruit — the same molecule doing both.

• Gallium arsenide

  GaAs

  The semiconductor that does what silicon cannot — emit light, and switch fast enough for a radio front end.

• Gallium nitride

  GaN

  The semiconductor that made blue light possible, and is now making phone chargers small — a wide band gap, and thirty years of work to grow it on anything.

• Lithium cobalt oxide

  LiCoO2

  The cathode that made the lithium-ion cell possible in 1980, still in the phone in your pocket, and abandoned everywhere the pack is large.

• Lithium iron phosphate

  LiFePO4

  The cathode with no nickel and no cobalt in it — cheaper, safer, longer-lived and less energetic, and now more than half the world's cell production.

• NMC cathode

  LiNiMnCoO2

  Nickel, manganese and cobalt in a layered oxide — the high-energy cathode, and a family whose whole recent history is trying to use less cobalt.

• Propylene

  C3H6

  Ethylene's more useful sibling and its perpetual shortage — one carbon longer, and the source of polypropylene.

• Quicklime

  CaO

  Calcium oxide, produced by burning limestone — the reactive intermediate behind mortar, plaster and cement.

• Salt

  NaCl

  The only rock people eat, the one mineral a human body cannot do without, and the feedstock of an industry that mostly wants the chlorine.

• Silicon carbide

  SiC

  A synthetic ceramic close to diamond in hardness, and the first commercially successful manufactured abrasive.

• Silicon nitride

  Si3N4

  The ceramic that tolerates thermal shock — bearings that run without oil, and the one that nearly became an engine.

• Sodium hydroxide

  NaOH

  Caustic soda — the strong base that underlies paper, soap, aluminium refining and much of chemical manufacturing.

• Styrene

  C8H8

  A benzene ring with a handle, and the monomer behind polystyrene, ABS, synthetic rubber and most fibreglass resin.

• Sulfuric acid

  H2SO4

  The most-produced industrial chemical in the world, and a reasonable proxy for a country's industrial output.

• Tungsten carbide

  WC

  Tungsten and carbon in a structure almost as hard as diamond and far tougher — the material nearly every cutting tool has an edge of.

• Water

  H2O

  The most used substance on earth, and the one whose every important property is an exception to what a molecule that small should do.

• Yttrium aluminium garnet

  Y3Al5O12

  A synthetic garnet that holds rare earth ions in a rigid lattice — the host crystal of most solid-state lasers, and the yellow in a white LED.

• Zirconia

  ZrO2

  A ceramic that resists cracking by changing crystal structure at the crack tip — and a convincing diamond substitute in its cubic form.