25 March 2026
More PGM potential for South Africa as Palladium Center returns with major new insight
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One sensed at last year's PGMs Industry Day that Nornickel's Palladium Center would be back with much more growth opportunities for South Africa's platinum group metals (PGMs).
That impression turned out to be beyond correct when Dmitry Izotov, the director of Nornickel's Palladium Center, outlined the centre's strategy to develop new palladium applications beyond the automotive sector at this year's high-spirited PGMs Industry Day, where hydrogen-enabling PGM horizons also resurfaced amid Northam Platinum's promising China findings.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the PGMs Industry Day on quantifying PGMs demand in automotive and non-automotive applications, Izotov focused on three potential major long-term growth areas where the Palladium Center was concentrating development efforts.
The first of these centred on solar energy, which he hailed as "the main alternative source of energy, the future source of energy".
Putting forward his contentions that current silicon solar cells have reached a maximum efficiency of around 30% and describing their thickness as rendering them relatively costly to produce, Izotov reported a transitioning to tandem PV panels combining silicon with perovskite materials. "The perovskite has a wider fill factor, so it can better catch the light during sunset and sunrise," Izotov contended. On that basis, PV panels that combine silicon with perovskite materials uplift efficiency, while their thinness cuts costs.
Of the two types of palladium-based products that are being developed by his company for this sector, the first is an additive to the perovskite active layer that has already demonstrated a 15% efficiency boost in testing, and the second is a tandem cell configuration with three palladium layers designed to address lifetime issues by leveraging palladium's proven barrier function characteristics for microelectronics applications.
"We really think it is a big opportunity for palladium, because currently in China the largest solar panel producers do not have this technology ready," Izotov reported. "By the end of the year we will have this first prototype and we expect to distribute these technologies to the big Chinese market."
The projected new demand for palladium is 0.5-million ounces to one-million ounces a year from around 2030 to 2035.
MICROELECTRONICS
Microelectronics, where gold dominates with nine-million ounces of annual demand, was highlighted as a second potential major long-term growth area. "It's still nine-million ounces, so it's like palladium total demand. For our PGM metals, it's a huge opportunity and a huge market," he noted.
With data centres for AI driving demand for next-generation printed circuit boards (PCBs) and high gold prices creating cost pressures, two product streams are being developed, one being new gold-palladium layer combinations that reduce gold content while increasing palladium, and the other using palladium-copper bonding wires to replace gold-based applications.
Izotov expressed the belief that while there was room for more gold reduction, gold would remain a perfect metal in terms of electroconductivity and corrosion resistance, but in smaller volumes.
The projected new demand is for at least one-million ounces a year, again from around 2030 to 2035.
LITHIUM-SULPHUR BATTERIES
The third potential major long-term growth area where the Palladium Center is concentrating development efforts is in lithium-sulphur battery technology, which it sees as offering advantages over lithium-ion batteries in several fields of application. This is because lithium sulphur is cheaper, lighter and has a higher density than lithium-ion.
On the negative side it has a short lifespan, which stems from formation of soluble polysulfides ...
One sensed at last year's PGMs Industry Day that Nornickel's Palladium Center would be back with much more growth opportunities for South Africa's platinum group metals (PGMs).
That impression turned out to be beyond correct when Dmitry Izotov, the director of Nornickel's Palladium Center, outlined the centre's strategy to develop new palladium applications beyond the automotive sector at this year's high-spirited PGMs Industry Day, where hydrogen-enabling PGM horizons also resurfaced amid Northam Platinum's promising China findings.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the PGMs Industry Day on quantifying PGMs demand in automotive and non-automotive applications, Izotov focused on three potential major long-term growth areas where the Palladium Center was concentrating development efforts.
The first of these centred on solar energy, which he hailed as "the main alternative source of energy, the future source of energy".
Putting forward his contentions that current silicon solar cells have reached a maximum efficiency of around 30% and describing their thickness as rendering them relatively costly to produce, Izotov reported a transitioning to tandem PV panels combining silicon with perovskite materials. "The perovskite has a wider fill factor, so it can better catch the light during sunset and sunrise," Izotov contended. On that basis, PV panels that combine silicon with perovskite materials uplift efficiency, while their thinness cuts costs.
Of the two types of palladium-based products that are being developed by his company for this sector, the first is an additive to the perovskite active layer that has already demonstrated a 15% efficiency boost in testing, and the second is a tandem cell configuration with three palladium layers designed to address lifetime issues by leveraging palladium's proven barrier function characteristics for microelectronics applications.
"We really think it is a big opportunity for palladium, because currently in China the largest solar panel producers do not have this technology ready," Izotov reported. "By the end of the year we will have this first prototype and we expect to distribute these technologies to the big Chinese market."
The projected new demand for palladium is 0.5-million ounces to one-million ounces a year from around 2030 to 2035.
MICROELECTRONICS
Microelectronics, where gold dominates with nine-million ounces of annual demand, was highlighted as a second potential major long-term growth area. "It's still nine-million ounces, so it's like palladium total demand. For our PGM metals, it's a huge opportunity and a huge market," he noted.
With data centres for AI driving demand for next-generation printed circuit boards (PCBs) and high gold prices creating cost pressures, two product streams are being developed, one being new gold-palladium layer combinations that reduce gold content while increasing palladium, and the other using palladium-copper bonding wires to replace gold-based applications.
Izotov expressed the belief that while there was room for more gold reduction, gold would remain a perfect metal in terms of electroconductivity and corrosion resistance, but in smaller volumes.
The projected new demand is for at least one-million ounces a year, again from around 2030 to 2035.
LITHIUM-SULPHUR BATTERIES
The third potential major long-term growth area where the Palladium Center is concentrating development efforts is in lithium-sulphur battery technology, which it sees as offering advantages over lithium-ion batteries in several fields of application. This is because lithium sulphur is cheaper, lighter and has a higher density than lithium-ion.
On the negative side it has a short lifespan, which stems from formation of soluble polysulfides ...