THE precious metal

Rarity

Osmium is both the rarest precious metal as well as the rarest existing element.

Osmium is mined together with platinum, however, the huge amount of 10,000 tons of platinum ore contains only 30 grams osmium. The separation of the metals is cost-intensive and very complex.

Once the mining of platinum declines, it is no longer possible to mine osmium. At this point, osmium will become even rarer.

The annual production since 2019 is about 1000 kg. A significant amount is used for crystallization, the remaining amount in the form of osmium compounds is used internationally in industry and academic research.

At the moment, production is steadily increasing as more and more contracted mines are separating the osmium. Thus, more osmium will be available to produce the approximately one cubic meter that is expected to be mineable.
Despite its toxicity, osmium tetroxide continues to be used for various purposes, including medical applications. In its crystalline form, osmium is solely used as a tangible asset and jewelry metal. 

The Osmium-Institute has access to the entire extractable osmium, which can then be crystallized. In addition, the Osmium Institute has options on Osmium which was found in the past.

Raw osmium is not to be bought from private sources!

Opportunities with osmium

Osmium is seen in the market as an investment and jewellery metal. There could be many other applications resulting from the special properties of osmium, but osmium is too rare and too expensive for any of these application options.

Investors are therefore speculating in the long term that osmium will become increasingly difficult for jewellers to buy due to its rarity. In the future, private and institutional investors will supply the jewelry market with crystalline osmium in the form of Osmium Bars, Osmium Diamonds and Osmium Stars.

It is therefore to be expected that the price of osmium will rise primarily despite its fluctuations.

The use of osmium in jewellery is also on the rise. It is often combined with metals such as gold, silver, platinum or titanium to create spectacular pieces of jewellery. These pieces of jewellery also deprive the raw material market for osmium of additional material. Since the jewellery remains in private hands, the osmium cannot be retrieved from it.

Characteristics

Osmium has the highest abrasion resistance of any material. So it would be the most durable nail file in the world.

In addition, osmium has the highest density of all elements and of all chemical compounds. Therefore, it is impossible to counterfeit osmium.

Osmium has a unique blueish-silvery to blueish-whitish lustre which unfolds in particular upon reflection of sunlight and LED light. The light is reflected in all directions, which reinforces the sparkling, overwhelming crystal structure.

Furthermore, the bulk modulus of osmium is also superior to most other substances. You could build the tallest skyscrapers out of it, or the most robust submarines, if there were more than 120 kg per year available.

Periodic table

Osmium is a chemical element with the element symbol Os and the atomic number 76. In the periodic table of the elements it is in the 8th group, the iron group. It is a hard, brittle, steel-blue transition metal and belongs to the platinum metals.

Osmium has the highest compression modulus of all elements with 462 GPa, only surpassed by aggregated diamond nanorods, and the highest density with 22.61 g/cm3.

Osmium completes the precious metals in the subgroup elements. It's the last of its kind.

Precious metals

Precious metals are metals that are resistant to corrosion, that is, that are permanently chemically stable in natural environments under the action of air and water. Due to their durability, gold and silver have been used since antiquity for the production of jewellery and coins.

In addition, the platinum-group metals have been discovered over the last four centuries. These show similar corrosion-resistant characteristics such as gold. To date, gold, silver, platinum and palladium all play an important role in global markets.

Osmium is commercially available since 2014 as it can now be traded in its crystallised form. Thus, it can be used as a means of payment, asset or jewellery metal in the market. Non-crystalline osmium is harmful to health. For this reason, osmium could not be brought to market before the crystallisation process was available.