Lead: Relationships
Every element and industry that Lead is linked to, and how. Each pair has its own card explaining the relationships between the two.
- Antimony: Antimony hardens lead for battery grids and ammunition, and much of it is recovered from scrap batteries at lead smelters, so the lead-acid battery chain is both a main user and a main recycled source of antimony; antimony prices more than doubled in 2025 after China's 2024 export curbs. (researched)
- Lead-acid batteries: Lead-acid batteries take about 85% of the world's refined lead, and the metal is recovered from scrap batteries so efficiently that most refined lead is now recycled. In India much of that recycling is informal, which keeps costs low but exposes workers and children to lead poisoning. (researched)
- Silver: Lead-zinc mines are the largest single source of the world's silver, and the silver is recovered in lead smelting and refining, so silver credits often make lead mines pay while lead output decides much silver supply. (researched)
- Zinc: Lead and zinc come out of the same ores and often the same smelters, so their mine supply is linked, but their demand is not: zinc protects steel from rust while lead mostly goes into car batteries. (researched)
- Copper: Their prices have moved together.
- Data centres and cloud: Data centres and cloud depends on lead.
- Electrical equipment: Electrical equipment depends on lead.
- Sulphuric acid: Their prices have moved together.
- Telecommunications: Telecommunications depends on lead.
- Underground, submarine and superconducting cables: Their prices have moved together.
- Waste and recycling: Waste and recycling depends on lead.