蜜芽传媒

Fluorine

The key building block for CFCs and a string of other gases posing a threat to mankind

• 23 mins

Technetium

Essential for medical imaging, supplies of this manmade element are far from guaranteed.

• 23 mins

Oxygen

The 'element of life' also makes our atmosphere very dangerous and costly to operate in

• 26 mins

Iron

How the abundant metal lron became the very stuff of modern industrial life

• 26 mins

Cobalt

The metal in magnets and phone batteries - but is some of it being mined by children?

• 26 mins

Boron

The mineral from the Wild West that toughens glass and stops bullets in their tracks.

• 26 mins

Gallium and Indium

LED lighting and the other electronics revolutionised by the elements Gallium and Indium

• 26 mins

Titanium

It's stronger than steel, but could this glamorous metal become as common as steel?

• 26 mins

Magnesium and Beryllium

Two metals with sinister reputations - one for flammability, the other for lung disease

• 26 mins

Copper

Why copper wires? And do solar power and batteries herald the death of the old AC grid?

• 26 mins