🏭 The Column: July 25, 2025

Good morning. Today we’re talking about molybdenum—a metal that has never been mentioned in the 5 years of this newsletter’s existence. (No shade to molybdenum, it’s just not the most eventful corner of the metals world.) Also, quick programming note: I’ll be traveling next week and won’t be able to send out an update. So expect the next edition on August 8th!

Making the switch to moly

Industrial gas producer, Air Liquide, just started up a new plant in Hwaseong, South Korea to produce molybdenum‑containing precursors for two early adopters in the semiconductor industry. It’s the second plant of its kind, with the first being built in Japan just two years ago.

For context, the world consumes roughly 300 KTA of molybdenum every year—roughly on par with metals like cobalt and tin, but an order of magnitude below nickel and lead, and two orders of magnitude below copper and iron. All of it starts the same way: mining molybdenite ore (MoS₂), concentrating it, roasting to molybdenum trioxide (MoO₃), and then reducing or converting that oxide into metal or ferromolybdenum. Almost all of this ends up in steel alloys, where small moly additions (roughly 1-10% of the alloy) boost high‑temperature strength, hardenability, and corrosion resistance.

Air Liquide isn’t doing any mining or roasting; they are likely buying molybdenum oxide or metal, and using it to synthesize and refine a solid molybdenum oxychloride–type precursor (perhaps molybdenum dichloride dioxide). They then sell that precursor to someone like Samsung, who loads the solid into a canister and vaporizes it in a process called atomic layer deposition, depositing a thin film of molybdenum still bound to oxygen and chlorine ligands. In a subsequent step, those ligands are stripped away, leaving behind an ultra-thin film of pure metallic molybdenum.

At this point, the use of molybdenum in semiconductor production is still in the R&D stage, but most industry experts seem to think that a shift from tungsten to molybdenum is inevitable because tungsten presents issues as transistors get smaller (issues that moly solves!). So if moly does graduate from promising to production, Air Liquide’s bet is that controlling both the molecule and the delivery hardware at scale will lock them in as the default supplier when the industry finally flips the switch. [LINK]

Other Things Happened:

Shell restarted their hydrodesulfurization unit after an unplanned outage earlier last weekend. BASF completed the construction of their new glacial acetic acid (GAA) and butyl acrylate plants at their Zhanjiang Verbund site. Sumitomo acquired AGC Group’s polycarbonate business. Mangrove Lithium announced plans to build a new lithium hydroxide and carbonate plant in Canada. Par Pacific formed a joint venture with Mitsubishi and ENEOS to make renewable diesel and SAF in Hawaii. Kemira announced plans to produce more aluminum chlorohydrate (ACH) in Spain. Veolia acquired Chameleon Industries. A new caustic soda plant in India will use Thyssenkrupp Nucera’s process technology. Syensqo and Cylib produced high-purity lithium hydroxide from battery waste.