Mineral review – Silver
Kawu Musa Idris-Idah, 13th April 2026 This series provides brief insights into minerals found in the “solar system” ecosystem. Conductors are critical to electricity generation. Silver is the best metallic conductor, but costs more than copper. Copper is also more abundant than silver. Albeit these factors, doses of silver are nonetheless used in panels (busbars) and inverters (switches, relays, circuit breakers, diodes). Silver is obtained directly from argentite or as a by-product of mining metals like copper, lead, zinc and gold. The metallic ore is extracted from the sub-surface and crushed to release the silver-containing bits. Via chemicals and air bubbles, valuable minerals (including silver) are removed as concentrate. Subsequently, concentrate is heated at high temperatures and metals separated from the concentrate, at their appropriate separation temperatures. Post-extraction, refining is required to obtain pure silver. The most common ore from which silver is produced, is lead. Molten zinc is added to lead ore, silver then sticks to zinc and forms a layer that could be removed from the mixture. Electrorefining is the last step where electricity is used to achieve pure silver (exceeding 99.9%). Morocco (179 / 266 tons), Eritrea (53 / 83 tons), South Africa (44 tons) and Botswana (35 / 95 tons) are the top producers of silver in Africa. The two figures provided are from primary and secondary sources. The convention: primary / secondary. The difference noted between both sources results from the complexity in tracking silver produced as a by-product. Nevertheless, the key message is that African countries don’t rank amongst the top ten producers of silver. The table below provides the highest-ranking silver producers, as per USGS 2026. Country Quantity (metric tons) Mexico 6,300 Peru 3,600 China 3,400 Bolivia 1,500 Chile 1,400 United States 1,100 Australia 1,000 Argentina 800 India 800 Kazakhstan 630
Mineral review – Silicon
Kawu Musa Idris-Idah, 9th April 2026 This series provides insights into minerals found in the “solar system” ecosystem. Silica, also called Silicon (iv) oxide, is obtained from mined quartz sand. Silica is processed further into ferrosilicon or silicon metal. Ferrosilicon is silicon mixed with iron, whilst silicon metal is high purity silicon. Ferrosilicon is used to produce steel, whilst high purity silicon (98%+ pure) is processed further to have much lesser impurities (99.999%+ pure), which could then be used for manufacturing solar panels. South Africa is the only African country that appears in the top 15 silicon producing nations. The country averaged about 10,000 metric tons of silicon metal and 35,000 metric tons of ferrosilicon in 2025. The table below provides the highest-ranking silicon producers, as per USGS 2025. Ferrosilicon Country Quantity (thousand metric tons) China 3500 Russia 420 Brazil 170 Norway 150 Malaysia 120 Bhutan 98 Silicon metal Country Quantity (thousand metric tons) China 4000 Brazil 180 Norway 130 France 68 Australia 47