What are the 10 cheapest chemical elements?

Answer 1

I presume that by "elements" you are meaning simple substances in elemental form, not in compounds.

It is also important to note that the price of any material depends very much on how pure you want it to be, and how much of it you want to contract to buy.

There is also a lot of difficulty in comparing prices of gases with those of solids or liquids, because with gases there is often also a cost of cylinder hire, and high delivery/collection costs. For the purposes of this answer I shall leave out gases. I think they would all be more expensive than the cheapest solid or liquid elements, but it is very hard to work out the comparison. And there are complications: for nitrogen, do you base the price on compressed gas or on liquid nitrogen. For oxygen hire of a generating machine is usually a better and safer option than a compressed gas cylinder, but how do you cost that?

For gases I think (not at all sure) that the order would go nitrogen(cheapest) < oxygen < hydrogen < chlorine about same as argon, and others much more expensive.

For non-gaseous elements, I found that the best comparison was for high quality industrial grade materials (typically 95 to 99.5% purity) in quantities around 1 tonne.

The cheapest 3 seem to be sulfur, carbon, and iron, all in the 15¢/kg to 50¢/kg range.

Aluminium, lead, and zinc are similarly priced, around $2/kg, with silicon (~$2.50), magnesium (~$3.00), and manganese (~ $ 3.50) just a little higher.

That leaves a tenth slot, that probably goes to some common element that I am overlooking. Failing that, it seems we have to go to copper, at about $7.50/kg

Answer 2

Except gases Calcium is the most cheap element....

Answer 3

Iron is probably the most abundant metal on earth, however the cheapest metal is usually tin but it varies in price depending on which country mines it and which country sells it

Answer 4

Oxygen and nitrogen, air, free

(they are non metals)

Answer 5

aluminum