We are all more or less familiar with the periodic table of the elements, a graphic representation of all the elements that make up all the matter around us, and even ourselves. Published by the Russian Dimitri Mendeleyev in 1869, since then new elements have been added as they were discovered. In total, today it contains 118 elements, the last ones added in 2015.

44 of them are on the verge of disappearance. Not of the table, but of the world. The elements, like the living beings, are extinguished, and a good handful of elements are close to making them or they will be in that situation in the next century. They are all collected in this version of the periodic table that marks in yellow, orange and red the elements threatened according to their critical threat. Among them, some that we will miss if they end up disappearing.

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The reason why they have received this classification is different in each of them, but they have to do with the scarcity of supply with respect to demand, non-existent or inefficient recycling practices, the difficulty in extracting them.

Helium: The second most abundant element in the universe.

It is curious the case of helium. This gas is among the most abundant in the universe and therefore it is ironic to classify it as a seriously threatened element during the next 100 years. The problem is that it is a gas so light that it escapes from the Earth's atmosphere without difficulty, which means that the amount of helium present on Earth only decreases.

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CC BY-SA 2.0 UK

And that's a job because helium is very useful for us: from filling fun balloons at parties and parades to cooling magnets in devices such as medical image scanners or particle accelerators. To avoid its extinction, there would be, on the one hand, that try to recycle the helium used for these purposes and thus give it a new use, and on the other develop processes that capture the helium that is produced in natural gas extractions and avoid letting this precious resource escape.

But why would anyone do it?

Currently, helium is an element too cheap: it costs very little to buy it, and therefore no one is interested in recycling it or finding new ways to produce it.

The three problems that this implies.

On the one hand, there are the environmental aggressions caused by mining and the processes of extractions of some metals and minerals, which besides being in themselves harmful, depend on fossil fuels that produce large amounts of polluting emissions, harmful to climate change and directly for human health.

The other is the need to keep industries supplied with the materials they need, such as gallium, which is only generated as byproducts of foundries and other industrial processes.

But there is a third risk: the concentration of many of these elements that are scarce or that are expected to be scarce in the near future in certain areas, such as China or Africa, which may lead to new geopolitical tensions and equilibria in the coming decades.

Therefore, we do not remain alone in whales, pandas and other adorable animals (and I take advantage of this closure to also claim the protection of ugly animals, of which we will talk about another day) and protect also the threatened elements.

References.

• http://www.pnas.org/content/112/14/4257.full
• http://assisted-dying.org/blog/2015/04/24/australian-warning-on-diluted-helium-tanks/
• Endangered Elements
• https://www.thoughtco.com/most-abundant-gas-in-the-earths-atmosphere-604006
• http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/03/17/why-is-helium-so-scarce/

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