A study of iron and some of its major alloying elements (i.e., vanadium,chromium, manganese, and niobium), published in March 2014 in Environmental Science & Technology, investigates the criticality of these elements. Because of its widespread geological occurrence, iron was found at low supply risk. Chromium and manganese, both essential in steel making, display high vulnerability to supply restriction, largely because substitution or substitution at equal performance is not possible for all end-uses. The overall criticality is low for iron and modest for all alloying elements investigated.

Iron group criticality at the global level around 2008.

The publication is available at Environmental Science & Technology and the accepted version available free of charge here.