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15 Most Expensive Substances In The World

Zak Ben - Thursday, April 17, 2014
What are the most expensive materials? In the search for a possible answer our thoughts immediately turns to gold or diamonds; However, some substances are more rare but extremely useful in demands for industrial production. Surprisingly, the most expensive of all is precisely its opposite, antimatter. Considered as the possible fuel of future spaceships, it is extremely difficult to create: create a single Atom it is immensely difficult and expensive, the NASA estimated that, in order to produce one gram of antihydrogen, you need $ 62,500; We can therefore consider it the most expensive material.

The 15 Most Expensive Substances In The World List

15. Gold
Cost: $ 56.73/gram



Impervious to most chemical compounds, reacts in practice only with aqua regia and cyanide ion. Gold is an excellent electrical conductor and its resistance to corrosion makes it very often required in the creation of electronic components of the highest quality. It is used also for the viewer of the space helmets, to protect from the Sun's rays.


14. Rhodium
Cost: about $ 58/gram



It is a substance much sought after especially by theautomotive industry to reduce carbon emissions in motors.


13. Platinum
Cost: about $ 58/gram


Platinum is used in jewelry, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts, dentistry and anti-pollution devices of automobiles, to produce catalysts for the chemical industry. It is also used as a catalyst in scientific experiments or certain drugs against cancer.


12. Methamphetamine
Cost: $ 100/gram




11. Rhino Horn
Cost: $ 110/gram



"The 95% of the world's rhinos have disappeared over the last 40 years", with record levels of poaching in South Africa (668 specimens killed in 2012 and over 1000 in 2013) and Zimbabwe, until too active in China and Viet Nam market, among the main perpetrators of the recent extinction – according to data of the Department of the environment in South Africa – the black rhinoceros of West Africa. Highly sought after by Asians because of the belief that the dust that obtained has aphrodisiac effects and healing powers against the cancer.


10. Heroin
Cost: more than $ 131/gram



9. Cocaine
Cost: $ 215/gram



8. LSD
Cost: LSD crystals cost about $ 3000/ounce
lsd



7. Plutonium
Cost: Roughly $ 4,000/gram



Plutonium is used primarily for nuclear reactors and military purposes in nuclear weapons.


6. Paine
Cost: $ 9000/gram



Gem mineral is more rare on the planet and is used in the creation of jewelry of great class.


5. Taaffeite
Cost: from $ 2500 to 20,000/gram



It owes its name to an Irish gemologist, count Charles Taaffe, who scpoperta in 1945, in a lot of stones coming from Sri Lanka. Very rare mauve-coloured stone is too harsh to be processed, but its great hardness and durability, make it an excellent stone for the rings.


4. Tritium
Cost: $ 30,000/gram



You'll be amazed to know that this material frominnate fluorescence is used in "EXIT" signs of schools and cinemas. There are more than 2 million of tritium EXIT signs in the United States.


3. Diamonds
Cost: $ 55,000/gram.



Photo credit: Jeffrey Beall / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)



2. Californium
Cost: $ 27 million/gram



Californium was discovered in the 50 's by bombarding curium with alpha particles (helium ions), and is one of the few transuranic elements that have practical applications. For example, the californium can be used to start nuclear reactors, and is used as a source of neutrons when you study neutron diffraction and neutron spectroscopy. The 252Cf (half-life of 2.6 years) is a strong neutron emitter and is thus extremely radioactive and dangerous (one microgram spontaneously emits 170 million neutrons per minute). The use of californium is present also in the medical field, particularly in the treatment against cancer.


1. Antimatter
Cost: $ 62,500 billion/gram



In physics, antimatter is the set of antiparticles which correspond to mass to particles that constitute ordinary matter, but having opposite charge. Many experiments have taken place at CERN and NASA and CERN in January 2014, the ASACUSA experiment has succeeded in producing the first antihydrogen beam and then was able to identify 80 atoms to 2.7 meters from the point of production. Antimatter also has a technological application: positron emission tomography, or PET, a medical diagnostic tool that uses the emission of positrons to produce images of internal organs of patients, looking for tumors based on their metabolism. To produce antimatter particle accelerators are needed, and huge amounts of energy, making the company energetically and economically unprofitable. The figure to produce 10 milligrams of positrons has been estimated at 250 billion dollars, equivalent to $ 25,000 per gram. NASA made an estimated 62,500 billion dollars to produce one gram of antihydrogen, as then the material more expensive to produce. CERN's estimates, the production of one billionth of a gram of antiparticles (the quantity used in the experiments) has cost several million Swiss francs.