Technological innovation and supply of critical metals: A perspective of industrial chains

Abstract

Critical metal supply includes the mining, smelting and the recovery of secondary resources, in which technological innovation plays an important role. However, there is a lack of empirical research on it. From the perspective of industrial chains, this article divides the critical metal supply into two stages: mining & beneficiation and smelting & recycling, and respectively discusses the effects of technological innovation on supply of critical metals. Then heterogeneity analyses among 11 kinds of metals are performed, and the industry development scale is considered to explore the influence path. The results indicate that: (1) the effects of technological innovation on critical metal supply show inverted U-shaped relationships in the mining & beneficiation stage; Gallium reaches the inverted U turning point faster than others, while the inverted U-shaped relationship does not hold for cobalt, nickel and platinum group metals. (2) The effects in the smelting & recycling stage are linear promoting; the effect on tin supply is the most significant, while on aluminum supply is negative. (3) Technological innovation can improve supply of critical metals by expanding the scale of metallurgical industry, which is called technological scale effect. A series of robustness tests and further analyses prove the above results valid.