Entropic Approach to Critical Materials Assessment

TL;DR

This paper introduces an entropic statistical method for assessing critical materials by analyzing supply risk and societal importance through a geologic entropy framework, adaptable to various constraints.

Contribution

It develops a novel entropy-based approach to evaluate material criticality, integrating economic, security, and regulatory factors in a flexible, quantitative manner.

Findings

The method relates elemental price to crustal abundance.

It demonstrates applicability to parameters with peaked probability distributions.

Provides a new quantitative tool for criticality assessment.

Abstract

Most methodologies for materials criticality assessment score supply risk and societal importance. Market-based criteria offer quantitative measures for assessment. Here we develop a statistical approach based on a geologic entropy function in which flexible constraints, such as economic, national security related, or regulatory, can be applied. As an example, the formulation describes the relation between elemental price and crustal abundance for selected elements, both important to supply risk. The method may be applicable to parameters resulting from collective decisions exhibiting a highly peaked probability distribution.