The bulk of silver usage (around 56%) is in industrial applications including electrical industry, electronics, brazing alloys and solders, photovoltaic sector, photography and the production of ethylene oxide. Thanks to its unique properties, silver is also a prime candidate for multiple innovation-driven applications. For example, silver nanowires are viewed as the ideal material for flexible touchscreen technologies, like flexible solar cells and rollable electronic displays. Nanosilver, silver with an extremely small particle size (1-100 nanometers, that is 1-100 billionths of a meter), provides a new frontier for technological innovation, requiring much smaller amounts of silver to get the job done.
Silver: key end-use areas, 2014
Such new applications will buoy the demand for silver, despite the fact that silver, by and large, remains a mining by-product, which is associated with other base metals or gold and whose recovery could be easily overshadowed by the value or cost competitiveness of these metals or gold. Despite general positive and bullish mood regarding the prospects of the global silver market, the silver industry faces numerous issues, including increased price volatility, market uncertainty, insufficient financing, concerns about the safety and environment, and new form or mineral nationalism, exhibited by various countries and manifested in multiple trade barriers. However, these issues can be mitigated by new economical extraction methods, innovative mining technologies, use of renewable energy for mining and manufacturing operations, as well as by owning geographically diversified portfolios of mining projects. It seems that many companies operating on the silver market will follow these strategies in order to address the above-mentioned challenges.
More information on the global silver market can be found in the insightful research report “Silver: 2016 World Market Review and Forecast”.